


Fresh Air

by LadyFangs



Category: Brotherhood (TV 2006)
Genre: F/M, Interracial Relationship, Romance/Betrayal, Secrets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-07
Updated: 2018-07-24
Packaged: 2019-04-19 21:00:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 41,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14245653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyFangs/pseuds/LadyFangs
Summary: Michael Caffee is back in Providence, Rhode Island, trying to pick up where he left off seven years ago, when he fled two steps ahead of a mob hit, and one step ahead of the law.  But while he works to reclaim his place in the Irish mob, he meets a woman--and a months long love affair has the potential to change his life for the better...if he can hold on to her.Thanks to BlackQat for Editorial Input.





	1. Chapter 1

**Fresh Air**

_A Brotherhood fic_

“All I’m sayin’ Michael, is that this one is a new low. Even for you.”

He casts a side-eye at Pete and balls up a piece of paper. His best friend is turned around, trying to clean up broken shards of glass and spilled liquor on the floor of their little corner store, talking while not looking up at all.

“How old is she? Is she even legal yet?”

“She’s 22 for fucks-sake, what the fuck do you think I am?”

He’s annoyed at the insinuation—especially since he was the one to drop that child molesting bull-dyke from the highest rooftop in the neighborhood. _It_ had it comin’. You just don’t fuck with kids. He’s got three nieces of his own. Still wants a kid or two, eventually, though it hadn’t worked out the way he’d planned with the woman he’d also planned to make those kids with.

Michael shakes his head on that one—not that Kath decided to move on from him, seven years gone is a long time for anybody—but of all the men around here, she decided to give it up to Fat Eddie?

“He’s not fat!” she’d insisted.

He saw Eddie just the other day. Still as fat as he remembered. Must have been desperate times all around…

“Yeah, well…coulda fooled me. But hell, you like ‘em crazy. No knock here man—I think you bit off a bit too much crazy with that one, though.” Pete looks up, throwing him a lopsided grin. “I’d fuck her crazy ass too.”

And then he proceeds to make loud, obnoxious sex sounds that culminate in both men laughing their asses off.

Michael won’t profess to know much or a lot about how women work. Despite his reputation, there’d really only ever been one he was serious about. Kath. Before he had to go, hell, they may as well have been married. They’d considered it. Talked about it, but in the end, decided it was just too risky.

Shannon on the other hand…

“Yeah, I’m uh, transitioning out of that situation,” he says finally, the laughter dying down. “But you know how it is.”

Pete nods quietly in understanding.

It’s not about the sex.

.

.

She’s running late to the baby shower and is now thoroughly lost among the twisting streets of Providence. What’s worse, her cell phone is dead, leaving her without a method to call for an S.O.S. Every row house here looks the same as the last and so does each corner and…

Didn’t she just pass that church? Or is it a similar one?

Frustrated, Maggs pulls over at the first store she sees, deciding that practicality trumps pride at the moment. A blast of cold air slaps her in the face, and she pulls her jacket around her tighter as she steps out her car and walks quickly to the entrance.

Another gust basically pushes her inside and the door chimes, announcing a potential customer.

“Hey gorgeous, what can I do you, for?”

She looks up at the voice and into a cheesy, terrible leer partially hidden by a Groucho Marx porn-stache.  

“I hope that wasn’t a come on. You couldn’t catch a fly with that shit.”

At that, a deep chuckle draws her attention to a tall, dark-haired man behind the counter.

“She got you there, Pete,” the man standing at the cash register says, pointing at him and stepping from behind the counter and coming up to Maggs.

“What can we help you with, Miss?”

The way he’s smiling at her, a slight curl of his lips, makes her grin back at him. He’s cute, Maggs thinks. The dark hair combined with the blue eyes is striking, and the strong, Northern accent is arresting too. But, that doesn’t negate the reason she stopped here in the first place.

Um, well,” she says. “I’m lost and I’m late.”

“Where are you tryin’ ta get to?” he asks. So she gives him the address, feeling a bit silly for having to revert to the old-fashioned, “head up the block, turn left, go three more blocks, take a right at the church and it’s across the street,” route.

“Thanks,” she tells him, turning to head out of the store. He follows her.

“I didn’t catch your name.”

“Because I didn’t throw it,” she turns, still smiling, despite herself. He extends a hand to her. “I’m Michael.”

She shakes it. “Maggs.”

“Short for…?”

“Magellan.”

“Like the explorer?”

“Something like that. I’ve got to go. Thanks for the help.”

 She climbs back in the car.

He watches her drive off, a smile still playing at the corners of his lips.

Pete comes walking out.

“That was a fine piece of ass,” he says. “Wrong color, though.”

Michael rolls his eyes and cuffs Pete over the head.

“Come on, idiot.”

They go back inside.

He’s still thinkin’ about Maggs. Pete is correct. Supple, brown skin, wide eyes, and full lips painted red, and were those dimples he spotted? A head full of dark, thick, wavy curls. On the taller-side too, and though she’d been pretty bundled up from the cold, he’d caught sight of a pair of shapely legs encased in denim jeans.

Magellan. Not too many women around with a name like that. If she’s nearby somewhere, Michael knows he can find her.


	2. Chapter 2

 

“Hey Maggs, flowers!” one of the other nurses calls from their station. She walks up to the nearby sanitizing station and washes her hands before coming to the large, circular desk.  

“Whose room?”

“Oh! Those are for you,” her friend Janice tells her with a grin. “They arrived a few minutes ago.”

“Oooh…flowers,” Kim, the ARNP says, stopping by to pick up a patient file. “What’s his name?”

“I don’t even know where these came from,” Maggs, says eyeing the bouquet. She counts the roses, four dozen of them. And not cheap, either.

“So, who are they from?” Janice asks, looking intently at the computer screen in front of her and occasionally glancing at the document next to the screen.

Maggs opens the card attached.

“Here’s hoping I found the right Magellan. –Michael.”

_Michael…Michael…_

Does she even know a Michael? Maggs frowns, trying to place the name and flips the card over, seeing the symbol of the floral shop.

Frey Florist. Providence, Rhode Island.

The guy from the store this past weekend?

“Okay, so those were definitely worth at least $200.00,” Kim pipes up, looking at her phone.

“Oh girl!” Janice again. “Did you give him a sniff?”

They all laugh and she shakes her head.

“Just a guy I met at a store. He gave me directions to Diane’s shower last weekend.”

“Was he a cute guy?”

She shrugs. “I mean…he was…” cute? Was he cute?

He had really pretty eyes, she remembers. And his voice was kinda sexy…deep. Husky. Dark hair.

Maybe he was kinda cute.

Here she is. Calling a grown ass man, cute.

Maggs takes the flowers to the little kitchenette in the break room, and begins the work of clipping the stems at the end at an angle. She adds a little of the rose food into the vase the flowers came in and adds fresh water before carrying the arrangement back out to the station and positioning them near a window.

There’s a number on the card as well. And she makes a note to call and say thank you when her shift ends…three days from now.

.

.

Shannon is thoroughly enjoying herself, bucking away on top of him. At least one of them is.

But hell, he might as well finish up and get off, it’s about all there really is between them, anyway. And sure enough, when she comes and realizes he didn’t, well…

“What the fuck is wrong with you, Michael? You don’t want me anymore?” She sits back looking at him with narrowed eyes, already working herself up into a huff. He can see it a mile away.

“It’s not like that,” he tries, reaching for her only to have his hand slapped.

“What? You fuckin’ someone else?” she says.

It gets an eye roll. “The only person I’m fuckin’ is you.”

“Oh, so is that all I am to you now? Just a vessel to keep your dick wet?”

He bites his lip to keep himself from saying exactly what he wants to her, feeling his temper start to flare. But his mother raised him to be respectful toward women, and he’s trying his damnedest right now.  Yet, Shannon must know how close she is to tapping on his very. Last. Nerve.

“Or maybe…it’s cause grandpa can’t get it up anymore?”

Final straw. It ain’t worth it. He’s not that desperate. Besides he’s had better. Way, way better. All she was good for was knocking the edge off, anyway.

Michael doesn’t say another word to Shannon. Just gets up and puts his clothes on.

Her “room”… if it’s even that, doesn’t even have doors, just those annoying hippie beads dangling from the frame. He leaves Shannon there, naked, legs pulled up to her chin in the middle of the bed. And he can’t even say it was fun while it lasted.

More of a headache than anything.

The phone rings while he’s driving off.

“Hello?”

“Hi…Michael? This is Maggs.” Her voice comes through, silky and sensual, he thinks. Or maybe that last one is just residual incompletion. The flowers were sent a few days ago and he figured, when he didn’t hear anything back, she’d ignored them. It was worth a shot. He shifts the phone to the crook of his neck so he can drive with both hands.

“Hi, you. Did you like the roses?”

“They were gorgeous. What did I do to get them?”

“You showed up in my store,” he tells her. “And now you’re calling, so…does that mean I can take a pretty lady to dinner?”

She laughs. “That’s a bit ambitious. I don’t even know you.”

He pulls up to his house … his mom’s house … and kills the engine, turns off the lights.  “Well, how about we get to know each other? What’s your favorite color?”

“Purple. Yours?”

“Blue. How about favorite foods?”

“Macaroni and cheese, fresh seafood and truffle-infused anything.”

“Truffle…you sound expensive.”

“That comment makes you sound cheap.”

“I prefer the word ‘simple’,” he tells her, leaning back in the seat, enjoying Maggs’ voice. It’s nice. Been a long time since he talked to a girl about something other than screwing her. Since he got back it sorta feels like all he’s attracted to are crazy, horny women. Maybe he’s finally coming back to sanity. Maggs seems like she’s fairly down-to-earth. Of course…

“Something tells me that a man who found a way to track me all the way to Boston isn’t all that simple.” He hears her smile through the phone, and smiles back.

“And something tells me that a woman named Magellan who works in Boston with friends in Providence, and obviously isn’t from either place, isn’t so simple either. So, where are you from, Maggs?”

They talk on through the night.

She tells him she grew up in Southern California. Lives in Boston. He tells her he grew up a block away from his store.

“I can’t imagine living in one place my entire life.”

“Well, I was away for a while.”

“Did you miss home?”

The question catches him off guard. “Yeah. I did. Every day.”

There’s emotion behind it. His accent gets thicker. She picks up on it. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to probe.”

“Nah. It’s good.” He recovers just as quick. “What about you. Do you miss home?”

“A bit, yes. But I think what I miss more is the community there. When I was young, we all lived within a few blocks of each other. But those were different times.”

A nod of understanding. He gets that. A small bit of grace that his family and friends still live that way.

Michael ends up turning the car back on to get some heat moving, but he doesn’t leave. Not until he hears her start yawning.

It’s 2:13 a.m.

“My phone is dying,” Maggs says, sleepiness creeping into her voice. “It’s been a long few days.”

“I can’t let you go without one more question,” Michael says, voice lower. He’s getting tired too. Even night creatures go down eventually.

“What is it?”

“What are you doing tomorrow?”


	3. Chapter 3

 

“Boston? Why there?” Rose is bustling around the kitchen, apron on, as Michael rubs his tired eyes at the table. A heavy plate laden with eggs and bacon and biscuits is put before him.

“I’ve got an appointment, Ma,” he tells her, before grabbing a fork and taking the first of several large bites.

“Something more important than spending time with your own mother? I barely see you.”

“I live with you,” he reminds her. Not that she needs it. “And don’t I always come when you call?”

She looks at her eldest boy with a combination of affection and slight annoyance. “You know what I mean. You were gone years, Michael. I thought you were dead. We all did. I love you. Does that make me a bad mother?”

 _Dammit._ She guilts him every fucking time and he wipes his mouth on a napkin and leans over to give her a kiss on the cheek.

“I’ll be home by dark, ma” he tells her.

Rose smiles, giving him a pat on the cheek.

“Such a good boy.”

He sighs, accepting that to his mother, he will forever be a scrawny, scrappy ten-year-old. Perhaps it’s better that way. For Rose to keep her illusion intact, than for her to see the real man her prodigal son has become.

.

.

It’s just slightly warmer than the weekend, but warm enough for her to decide against the down-infused jacket and opt for a less bulky one.

The black, asymmetrical high-neck coat goes on over a white sheer blouse with a tank top underneath. Long johns under the dark skinny jeans, and a pair of flat, over-the-knee boots. The weather is just one of the many things she’s still getting accustomed to in the North. And she didn’t want to spend too much money by buying new clothes, so she’s making the ones she’s got work—with a few adjustments. It was never this cold in Florida. And definitely NOT in Georgia or California. For not the first time, Maggs puzzles over how it was she chose Boston.

Never mind. Nothing to ponder there. It just leads down a shitty, crappy road which would force her to trace her list of bad decisions and personal regrets. But enough of that. Today, she’s got a date.

A quick glance in the mirror and she fluffs her hair, the thick twists bouncing between her fingers. Just enough to give them a bit of extra body. It’s a style that protects against the elements. Even that is taking a bit more getting used to. She hadn’t factored in the effects of Boston on her hair.

The lilting drawl of her English GPS voice guides the way through the winding Boston streets, and in 32 minutes Maggs is driving into the public parking deck. She’s meeting Michael today after confessing the night before that she hadn’t been out much since moving here at the start of the year when she decided to move. She hadn’t factored much really. The goal was to go away as far as she could.

Michael is already waiting for her at the trolley stop when she spots him-- dressed in a pair of relaxed dark wash jeans, a black t-shirt and a leather coat. It looks good on him, she thinks, feeling the dance of butterflies in her stomach as she approaches and waves, calling out his name and waving as she walks up.

Michael looks up, seeing her.

“Wow. You’re prettier that I remembered,” he says giving Maggs an once-over as well and lingering on her face. Her lips are painted a darker color, accentuating the shape of them, the cupid’s bow a percent accent to them. She smiles, and he catches sight of those dimples again.

“Not bad yourself,” she gives a quick grin then glances around. “Where’s the ticket booth? I need to get mine.”

 “Already done.” He holds a piece of paper out to her, expecting…what? Not the way her arched eyebrows draw closer together. “Did I…do something wrong?”

“No…It’s just…I don’t really like guys paying on the first date,” she explains, accepting the ticket. “I can pay you back. These were expensive.”

“Not that expensive,” Michael says, and adds, “And does that also mean this is an official date?”

The trolley bells ring as it comes around the corner, drawing closer to them. A few more people have gathered, waiting to board.

“Maybe,” Maggs says as the trolley draws to a stop and Michael climbs up first, extending a hand to her. She takes it, allowing him to guide them to empty seats.

“Maybe what?”

“Maybe if it goes well,” she says. “But I’m still going to pay you back. I don’t want any misunderstandings.”

Ah.

 “I’m not that kind of guy.”

“Good,” she says. “Cause I’m not that kind of girl.”

“Well, glad we got that straight.”

The bells again as the Trolley pulls away and their tour guide begins to narrate the history of Boston and the founding of America, one building and landmark at a time. “And that’s where the men gathered to conduct the Boston Tea Party…” the guide says with forced enthusiasm, having memorized the script by now from the hundreds of rides and tours she’s given over the course of the week.

Michael, meanwhile, is trying to make Maggs laugh with the “un-official” history, and she’s struggling to keep a straight face.

“…And that’s where the first Americans took their first piss in the woods,” he says, voice low so nearby children can’t hear, as he reaching across Maggs and points out the open-air windows at a street corner. They’re side-by-side, close together and the leather of his coat and arm graze against her upper chest innocuously.

A completely innocent touch. He smells good.

Like sandalwood and male-ness. It’s 54 degrees outside, but he’s shielding her body with his from the worst of the air, keeping her warmer. It’s nice. Their knees bump together and she finally laughs out loud  as he cracks jokes in-between the narration.

They hop on and off different trolleys at different places.

“I know a nice spot around the way,” Michael says when he looks at Maggs and notices her shivering. “You like coffee, don’t you?” As if it should be obvious.

“I thought Boston was a tea town?”

“About 400 years ago, sure,” he tells her as they walk. Michael slips around her to position himself on the street-side of the sidewalk one hand on her lower back protectively as they go.

He opens the door to the shop for her and she thinks how gentlemanly he is. All the nice little gestures remind her of one of those old-fashioned kind of men—the ones her mom and aunts used to reminisce about, “back in the day.” But she doesn’t think Michael is that old. Perhaps finally, someone with decent home training.

They settle into a table near the back of the room, and Michael takes the seat that looks toward the door, his eyes glancing around the room, taking a quick assessment of where others are, before falling back to Maggs, the conversation picking up where it left off the night before.

“So how does a California gal end up in Boston?” He asks. ~~~~

“California, by way of Georgia, by way of Florida,” she adds, for clarification.

“Move around a lot?”

“Not as much as you’d think. But I’ve got a fair amount of time in different areas.”

“So why Boston?”

“You want the truth?” She eyes him.

“Absolutely.” He’s calm, but those eyes of his are so sharp and she catches herself almost looking away at the intensity of them.

“I threw a dart at a map.”

Both eyebrows go up. “You’re serious.”

“You said you wanted the truth.”

Michael thinks on that one a bit and takes a stab in the dark.

“Was it a guy?”

“Isn’t it always? You men are difficult.” There’s a gentle smile playing at her lips, and his eyes are drawn to them again, with the urge to just kiss her. Though, that wouldn’t be very appropriate, not on the first date. After all, “she’s not that kind girl,” and he’s, “not that kind of guy”…anymore, at least. Though, he can honestly say he’s never really been that kind of guy. Plus, the way she is right now, laying her head in an open palm, elbow on the table, makes her appear pensive. And even though she’s got a smile, it doesn’t quite go to the rest of her face; he gets the impression that whatever brought her to Boston isn’t something she wants to dwell on.

“Hey,” he reaches over, brushing one of the thick, fluffy twists away from her face. “Didn’t mean to drag up bad things. Just trying to be friendly. I like your hair.”

It’s kind of lame, but makes Maggs chuckle. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to touch a black woman’s hair unless invited?”

“Oh, I didn’t know that. Sorry. It just looks really soft.”

And it is. He gives the curl a gentle tug, watching in fascination as the hair stretches down, down past Maggs’s shoulder and when released, bounces back tightly near her cheek.

“Beautiful,” he whispers, and it makes her shiver again, but not from cold. She knows he’s not talking about her hair.

“So…what do you do for your 9-to-5, Michael Caffee from Providence?” She deflects the comment, switching the subject back onto him and he draws back, leaning against the bench.

“I’m in business,” he tells her.

“What sort?”

“I’ve got a few different ones.” Not technically a lie. There’s the money laundering side, the liquor store hustle, the gambling stakes, and the pharmaceutical sales plus, the occasional shake-down. Business. His eyes flick up and around the room again, just for safe measure.

“Real estate, commercial. Lending. That sort of thing. What about you. You’re…what? A doctor?”

She’s quite pleased he didn’t just assume she was a nurse. “A nurse, actually. At the hospital where you found me.”

“I think you’re good at it,” he tells her.

“Why would you think that?”

“Because you’re nice. You got a good…aura, about you.”

“Aura?” An elegantly arched eyebrow goes up at his choice of words, not having placed Michael Caffee as a man who’d used such a term. Again, assumptions.

“Yes, _aura_. I know good people when I meet them, Magellan.” This time he leans over the table looking right at her and she sits up as he gently takes her hands into his.

“I think you’re a good woman. You’re special. Rare.”

“There are a lot of us in the world, you know, Michael. Women. Good women. I’m not that special.” But she’s blushing, hoping he can’t see it, that her skin is dark enough to hide the color.  

“In my world,” he says quietly, noting the way her long eyelashes flutter down, then back up and the way her dark eyes cast away then back at him, “you are.”

.

.

The sun is setting by the time they get off the trolley for the last time, and Michael accompanies her to her car, parked at a now half-empty lot.

“I had a good time, today. Thank you.”

“I’m glad for it,” he tells her, opening the driver’s side door for her.

Yet another simple gesture. He does it with ease, not forced, and it doesn’t feel like an act. She wonders if Michael realizes what he’s done all day: opening doors, escorting her to and fro—pulling out chairs for her to sit—so sweet. It’s the best date she’s been on in years. It’s also the only date she’s been on in years.

“Can I call you tonight?”

“I’d like that. Goodbye, Michael.”

“Bye, Maggs.”

The door closes and she watches as he starts to stroll off as she starts the car, and pulls out of the lot, tingling all over with excitement but trying to temper it with practicality. It was just a date. A really, really good date. But still, just one.

No big deal.

.

.

He takes I-93 down to 95, hits a bit of traffic around Canton, but not much, and after a few miles, it’s smooth sailing back to Providence. Maggs asked about what he did for a living, and he’d said, “Business.” He’s got some business to attend to tonight, but as he pulls into town, he decides now is the best time to give Maggs a ring.

Her voice comes through perfectly.

“Did you make it home?”

“Just pulling in now,” Michael tells her. “Canton was a mess, but it wasn’t too bad a drive.”

“I just want to say thanks again. I had fun today, Michael.”

“Glad I could help. Goodnight, Mags.”

“Goodnight.”

He hangs up right as he turns on his street and parks in front of his house. His mom’s house.

Rose greets him at the door as he walks up the steps, and he bends to hug her. “Oh good, you’re home. I made your favorite, Shepherd’s pie.”

Always the obedient son, he follows her to the kitchen and sits, allowing her to mother over him as he eats. “This is really good, ma” Michael tells Rose, quickly scarfing it all down and wiping his mouth with a napkin. Afterward, it’s a quick change of clothes, before he comes back down the stairs and heads for the door.

“Now where are you going? I thought you said you were staying in tonight.” Rose asks, looking up from the couch where she’s perched, spectacles on the tip of her nose, watching TV.

“I said I’d be _back_ tonight,” he tries to gently correct. But his mother is giving him _that_ face.

“Ma, I gotta go. I need to take care of some business.” A quick kiss on the cheek before she can lodge her protests against him.

In truth, Michael has been quietly, and at times not-so-quietly, taking care of his mother, brother and sister for the past 25 years, whether any of them fully appreciate it.

A few hours later, he’s wiping blood off his knuckles. It’s not his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My dear friend BlackQat, told me I can't start anymore fics unless I finish the ones I already have in progress. So...I'm just going to start posting a chapter a day.


	4. Chapter 4

 

Maggs doesn’t hear from Michael for the next week, and weighs whether to call him or not. It’s slightly irritating that at 33 she’s debating on what the extended silence means---maybe he’s not interested? Maybe the date didn’t go as well as she thought? Was she too defensive? Too standoffish? Isn’t it his turn to call or would she look desperate if she did?

They didn’t make a follow-up date.

Now, it’s Sunday night, and she’s gearing up for another three day, 36-hour shift at the hospital, busy packing her duffle with a fresh pair of scrubs and underwear, toothbrush, toothpaste, floss, her travel pillow and throw blanket—it gets cold in the bunk rooms sometimes, and it’s nice to have a piece of familiar—especially when the shift goes bad.

Every day, she witnesses miracles. But most of the time, tragedy is far more prevalent. And life is fragile and fleeting.

.

.

There’s a giant bouquet of roses sitting at the nurses’ station when she comes onto the floor.

“Hmmm…I wonder who these could be for?” Kim, the ARNP teases as she comes around the corner and takes appraisal of the arrangement. She pulls out her phone and snaps a photo of them and is doing a search.

“That’s another $200 right there,” she tells Maggs.

“Will you stop putting a price tags on everything?”

“What’d you do to get flowers?” Kim teases, winking at her. “Did you get some ‘quality time’ in the last few days?”

“What? NO! We had one date, that’s all,” she defends, but can’t help the tiny smile on her face as she checks out the bouquet. Sure enough, there’s a little card.

_Been a busy few days, but I didn’t forget. See you soon?—M.C._

Her heart jumps a little and she leans in to the blooms, smelling them. Fresh, and sweet. The first bouquet she received were all red, but these are lavender. A different color.

Kim’s looking at her phone. “Oh! Here. Lavender roses.” She reads from the screen: “Love at first sight or just an enchanting way to say, ‘I love you!’ Lavender roses can offer a daily reminder of your love and eagerness to grow your relationship.”

“All that stuff is made up,” Maggs protests, “we just went on one date.”

One, day-long date, preceded by an all-night phone call, heralded by a chance meeting at a liquor store in Providence two weeks prior.

“What sort of date?” Janice walks up right then, coming into the middle of the conversation. “Oh! More flowers!”

“Maggs went on a date with the guy who bought her the first batch. And _these_ today,” Kim says. “At least another $200.”

“So that’s what…$400 in flowers alone…what did you guys do on your… ‘date’?” Janice makes air-quotes with her fingers.

“I did NOT sleep with the man. We just did a trolley tour!”

“Oh, girl…do you know how much those tickets are?!” Kim again. “At least another $200 or so. Did he get dinner?”

“Hell, I wanna know if he got dessert to go?” Janice says, eyeing Maggs.

It gets a massive eye-roll, so hard Janice thinks her friend’s eyes might just pop out of her head.

“I’m _paying_ him back.” That elicits a storm of giggles from Janice and Kim, the two are practically doubled-over with laughter leaving Maggs momentarily speechless, watching them. Until she realizes what it sounded like, and tries to correct herself. “Stop it! I’m _reimbursing_ him,” she tries to clarify. “bought the tickets before I even got there, and for the last time…”

Still, she’s smiling.

Her good mood lasts the entire three-day shift, and even though she’s exhausted, she makes sure to call Michael on her way home Wednesday evening.

“Hey, you.”

The sultriness in his voice washes over her like a lover’s caress, making her tingle. The tiredness giving way to something else.

“Hi, yourself.”

“This must mean you’re off work. When can I see you again?” He cuts right to it, and Maggs laughs, the tingle growing more insistent, especially in a certain place.

“Part of me says tonight, but—“

“Where do you live? I’ll be right over.”

She chuckles at his eagerness, feeling very much the same way, but knowing better than to do that.  “I’m sure you would. No. I really need to sleep. But…maybe in the next day or two?” Because she knows to ignore her body on matters like these. It’s done her in before and she’s not trying to repeat mistakes. Besides…they’ve only been on one date. One wonderful, delightful, intellectually edifying date, but still…it’s just one.

_Down girl._

“Well,” Michael says slowly.  “How about a football game? Ever been to one?”

“No. I haven’t, but it’s been on my to-do list.”

“Would you like to go?”                

_._

_._

She’s amazed.

“How’d you get these seats?” Maggs asks as they make their way up and into the stadium deeper until they reach the box seats.

Outside is freezing, but as soon as Michael opens the door to the section and she steps in, it’s a lot warmer.

Below them the players are warming up down on the field and there are TV’s all around them, zooming in on the activity below. They’re nearly on the 50-yard-line and in their semi-private section, high above the field, she can see everything.

“I wanted to surprise you. Do you like it?” Michael asks.

Does she like them? Understatement. Maggs looks around.

“Are you sure these are ours?” Because she’s spotted famous faces, quite a few already. Actors and actresses. A popular singer and ….

Michael grins at her and takes her hand, guiding them to their seats.

“Yes, these are ours. And yes, we go here,” he tells her, pointing down at a chair.

It’s exciting. And shortly after kickoff, her competitive streak comes through hard.

Michael watches in amusement as his lady jumps and cheers with the crowd, jeers when a player catches a penalty she feels is unfair, and screams and claps along—she’s having a great time, and he’s glad for it.

“That’s a bullshit call!!” She yells down at him over the din of the arena, now almost deafening. “Did you see that crap that defender pulled? BOOO!!!! BOOO!!!!”

Michael’s cracking up at this point, laughing harder than he has in years. Maggs may not be from Boston, but _damn, is she Boston_ he thinks. She blends in perfectly.

The Patriots end up winning the game and by the time they make their way out of the stadium, she’s managed to scream herself hoarse, but is grinning happily.

“Hey, want to go to the team store?” Michael asks, suddenly inspired. “Let’s see what they got.”

 They go, and Maggs spots a ladies jersey with PATRIOTS written across it. She picks it up and holds it against herself, trying to determine whether it will fit. But then, she looks at the tag, and tries to subtly put it back on the rack, then picks up another, less expensive one.

Michael sees it, and picks the original jersey back up. “How about this one? Do you want it?”

“I’ll stick with this one.”

“No. Let’s get both.” He takes the shirt from her hand, along with the one in his and walks them to the register.

“Michael, I can pay for mine,” Maggs tries to insist. But he’s not hearing any of it.

“You’re on a date. Let yourself be treated.”

Earlier, when he picked her up at her apartment, she tried to give him cash for her part of the trolley-ride. He turned it town. “It was a date for Christ’s sake, Maggs. Let me spoil you. I _want_ to.”

“But…”

“No buts. Come on.” Even now, she’s still quite amazed when he hands her the bag with her shirts and extends an arm. She loops hers through his and their bodies bump a little as they make their way out of the emptier stadium, resuming their journey back to his car.

As they go, Maggs spots a photo booth and feels suddenly inspired. She grabs Michael’s arm, and points to it.

“Let’s go!”

In the moment, he feels so relaxed, and Maggs’ happiness is infectious. So he allows her to pull/ drag him over, as he fakes resistance.

The machine is fed and they slide in, posing for the camera. The first shots are just the two of them heads together, smiling awkwardly into the camera. The second shot is of Maggs, giving Michael an innocent peck on the cheek. The flash goes off again, catching him smiling at her and the fourth, gets Michael in a moment of spontaneity, kissing Maggs on the lips, her eyes wide in surprise. Another pop and another kiss, the two of them eyes closed, leaning in. 

The camera catches it all.

They look at the pictures, and Michael orders a second reel for himself.

.

.

They manage to get to the exit, and back out to the parking lot. He comes around and opens the passenger side door of his car for Maggs, and she gets in. He comes back around to the driver’s side and climbs in as well, starting the engine as she settles down into the leather seats.

As soon as they get in, her stomach makes a yowling sound and she flushes, a bit embarrassed.

“Sorry about that.”

“Hungry?” Michael asks her as they leave.

“How did you know?”

He laughs. “Me too. Come on. I know a nice spot by the river.” By now, it’s dark, and nearly 10 o’clock. The drive to the restaurant takes about 15 minutes and most of it they spend fighting their way out of the game traffic.

Michael gets out the car first and comes around to open her door, extending a hand to help her out.

“A girl can get used to this.”

“You should get used to it,” he tells her. “I’d like to be able to stick around for a while.”

_Oh god knows she’d love for him to..._

A waiter comes up to them as soon as they enter and guides them to a table.

“Do you have anything a little further back?” Michael asks. “Not so close to the door.”

He’s eyeing a booth in a back corner, and gives the waiter a hint with a slight nod in the direction and slips him a $20. The man gets it, and there they go, where Michael settles in at the seat facing the door, Maggs across from him.

“This is nice,” she says, taking an appraising look around. It’s a small restaurant, only a few people in it at the moment, but the atmosphere is intimate, with candles on each table and chandeliers, lights dimmed to a mere glow, casting the area around them in a soft, yellow hue. It’s also far warmer, and she takes off her jacket and puts it down next to her. Michael does the same with his.

“I think this checks off all your boxes,” he tells her. “Seafood. Mac and cheese. Stuff with mushrooms.”

She chuckles. “Truffles,” Maggs corrects, looking down at the menu. It’s expansive. Lobster. Oysters. Red Snapper, fresh fish…

“Is it really fresh?” she asks, pointing. Michael points out the window, to the river. “They get a boat every morning”

It’s exactly as Michael said it would be. Maggs eyes the spread hungrily. “I think my eyes were bigger than my stomach.” Only for her body to betray her with yet another hungry yowl.

“Mmm…pretty sure mine are exactly the same size,” Michael says, picking up a crab leg and snapping it in half, offering her the other.

It turns out, they share the same loves. The pile of crab, lobster, clams and oysters quickly begins to disappear between the two of them. He’s expert at claw cracking and demonstrates an uncanny ability to crack them with one hand, coupled with a wide grin at Maggs.

He’s enjoying all of this right now. It’s been a while since he had a woman he really wanted to spoil, but Maggs makes him just want to do it. To give her flowers and take her to nice places, and do stuff with her. She’s different. Not just in obvious ways, but in subtle ones, too. Like the way she keeps protesting his spending money on her. None of his previous….consorts ever complained about that, but he can tell it makes her uncomfortable. And he’s curious about that. So, he asks.

“Why don’t you like me paying for our dates?”

“It’s not that I don’t like it, it’s just…” she’s used to men thinking that just because they pay for it, it makes them feel entitled to sex. And tells him so. She also tells him, “I’m not quite…used to this.”

Now that takes him by surprise.

“A woman like you? I’m sure you have them lined up.”

But Maggs shakes her head. “Not really. I haven’t really dated a lot.”

“Huh?” That stops him mid-suck on a crab leg, and he wipes his fingers and mouth with the cloth before speaking again.

“How’s that possible? You’re fucking gorgeous.” He knows he’s said it before, but it’s true. Even now, in tight jeans and high-top sneakers, and a purple turtleneck, Maggs is striking. Her hair is still in those thick twist-things he likes. They frame her heart-shaped face, and her eyes are wide set and dark. Full lips melt into a huge smile and once again he catches those dimples. There’s no way Suddenly, Michael feels himself becoming nervous about what he may be getting. Maybe she’s too high-class for the likes of him.

“I had a boyfriend in high school, and I dated in college, a bit. My ex—we met a year after I graduated. Broke up last year.”

“In college? Wait—I know it’s impolite to ask a woman’s age, but…”

“I’m 33.”

“Well hell,” Michael leans back and rubs the back of his neck. He’s not that much older than her but…

A quick glance at Maggs and he sees her looking at him questioningly.

“What?”

“I’m just…why’d you ask that? Is something wrong with my age? How…old are you?”

“38,” he tells her. “And there’s nothing wrong. You don’t look like you’re in your 30’s.”

“It runs in my family,” she says. “Taylor women don’t look their age.”

“Then I guess I got lucky,” he says, and they go back to eating.

By the time they’re done, the restaurant is largely empty and the staff is giving them subtle hints by cleaning up nearby tables and sweeping the floor.

Both are full and satisfied and happy.

“Ready to go?” he asks.

“Yep.”

They stop at the front, and Michael pays the bill. In cash. That’s something Maggs notices, and when she catches sight of what he just spent on dinner…

Michael casts a side glance her way. “I’m treating,” he reminds her gently, slipping his hand into hers and entwining their fingers. Maggs looks down at their hands, liking the way they look together, the way the colors of their skin blend together. His hands are rough. She can feel the callouses on them. The fingers are long. He’s got nice hands, she thinks. And he gives hers a squeeze.

The tingle is back. That, and butterflies in her stomach.

The drive back to her place is quiet. Maggs looks out the window, watching the city lights go by. She squeezes her thighs together, trying to tamp down on what’s going on down there. There’s a lot going on down there.

He smiles to himself, knowing a horny woman when he sees one. And Maggs, for all her trying, is definitely horny. It’s in the way she’s looking out the window and biting her lip—he can see her reflection in the glass. And it’s the way she’s got her knees pressed together. If she were Kath, she’d probably be leaning against the door spread eagle with her hands down her pants trying to throw him off the road—but Maggs’ subtlety is cute. And he appreciates it. A change of pace.

A breath of fresh air.

They pull up to her complex into a space. He turns the car off, gets out, and comes around to let her out. She takes his hand, and holds onto it as he walks her into the building, then the elevator, and down the hall to her door.

 It’s nearly midnight.

“It’s…late. Were you still driving back tonight?”

“Yeah. I’m okay for it. A bit of a night creature anyway.”

“Okay. Well…I had fun tonight. Thank you. Dinner was wonderful.”

Those dimples again. She’s so very, very pretty, he thinks. A perfect lady, and…

“I’d like to kiss you,” he tells Maggs. “May I?”

She nods and he leans in, grazing her lips with his, just to feel them a moment. As soft as he imagined, and then…a little more, when they touch again, and he does kiss her. Fully.

It gets a soft moan.

She can’t help it.

His kiss just ignited every single nerve in her body as she leans into his, and he wraps his arms around her waist, deepening their kiss, and pulling her tight against him.

 _Oh._ She feels ALL of Michael Caffee right now.

And _oh_ , does she _want_ all of Michael Caffee right now.

But the little nag in the back of her head is starting to chime in. This is only their second date. She cannot do this on the second date. That, and Mother Nature has decided to guarantee she can’t with an arrival this morning.  

Reluctantly, Maggs breaks the kiss and draws back, biting her lip.

“Too much?” Ice blue eyes meet brown ones, and his brow furrows in concern.

“No! Yes…maybe?” Words escape, and she’s floundering slightly embarrassed that at the moment, she’s struggling to form a coherent sentence. It’s the way he’s looking at her, like he wants to devour her.

“Do you…want to stay over?” She asks him. “Maybe…leave in the morning instead?” It’s a leading question, trying to find a balance between want and need.

Sweet nirvana. “I’d love to,” Michael tells her, following her inside her apartment.

It’s a small space, but decorated eclectically. He takes a walk around the little studio with one wall adorned by three tall bookcases, filled with books and knick-knacks. She’s got a little couch—more like a loveseat really, and the floor is covered by a thick carpet with asymmetrical patterns. It reminds him of Shannon’s hippie pad, but a hell of a lot more refined. That place had been dark, kinda cluttered, and a bit grimy. Maggs’ space is much neater. He stops by the books, taking a look to see what she’s got. Some of everything. Ayn Rand, Paul Krugman, a few political treatises, all of the classics he remembers from school, and an entire section that, when he reads the titles, makes his eyebrows go up to his hairline.  _Erotica?_

“You like to read?” He calls out to her.

“Yes. Ever since I was a kid.” Maggs is in her room, or rather, in the bedroom space, partitioned elegantly by a divider. She’s changing clothes, and when she steps out again, she’s dressed in a t-shirt and tights.

Not exactly lingerie.

“You can take the bed,” she tells him. “I’ve got extra blankets.”  It’s a clear “no sex” message, but…

Michael thinks he gets Maggs better now. Knows to look for what she’s not saying, reading between the lines.  

So, he takes off his shoes by the couch and drapes his jacket on the back of it.

“Or,” Michael walks up to Maggs and turns her back toward the bedroom, “I don’t mind sharing. If you’re willing. And I promise,” he tells her in her ear, “I won’t bite.”

He pulls the sheets back for her, and she climbs in as he pulls them up and gets in next to her.

One arm wraps around her body and she finds herself burrowing closer into his, layers of clothes and linen between them.

Michael whispers in her ear, nuzzling her neck, tightening his grip on her body. It elicits a moan from Maggs, and he smiles against her skin, his hands wandering.

She turns to face him, kissing him again, tracing his lips with her tongue.

By now, he’s hard. Very hard, and what he wants to do is to just roll her over on her back and start taking off her clothes, kiss her until she yields to him, but he’s also acutely aware it could backfire. She’s has already let him know there’s no sex tonight.

 _Down, boy_.

So, he settles for the kisses, and for the touches, his hands running down her hips, following the curves, hers on his chest, mindful to stay in neutral places.

They kiss until, after managing to tamp down on their mutual desire, slip into blissful sleep.

He’s the first to wake in the morning and looks down at the woman in his arms, tucked against his chest. Maggs is still sleeping soundly, her hair in her face, and he moves one of the twists aside to gently kiss her again, first on the forehead, and then, her lips. He keeps kissing her until she’s roused from slumber.

With a long, deep stretch against his body.

This is a first. Sleeping with a woman and not having sex with her. But he thinks, later, when she walks him to the door and he hugs her goodbye that she’s definitely worth the wait.


	5. Chapter 5

“Gone all night Michael, and you didn’t call? I was worried sick!” Rose is on him as soon as he steps through the door.

“Ma, it’s no big deal. I just stayed over at a friend’s house.” Christ, it sounds like he’s a child again—even to his ears.

“Right. A friend.” Rose scoffs. “What have I told you about those _fast girls_ , Michael? You’d do best to find a nice woman from around here and settle down. You can’t just let Tommy do all the work with giving me grandkids…”

“Ma…again, we’re not gonna do this. I need a shower.” He drops a kiss on her forehead before making his way upstairs, and once in his room—his old room from when he was a kid--sinks down on the twin-sized bed, the one he outgrew by the time he was 12.

He’s here because of choices. Bad ones, but necessary. There is a saying that there’s no place like home. He knows Rose enjoys having him here. He really doesn’t want his mother to be lonely. But everyone needs space sometimes, and Maggs’ little studio had felt like a spa compared to this.

He gives her a text to let her know he got back okay. She’s got work in the morning. Another three days before he’s likely to see her again.

But already, Michael finds himself considering where he wants to take her next.

Afterward, he calls the flower shop.

“Ah, Mr. Caffee, what color do you want this time?” the owner asks, recognizing his voice now from the last few times he’s called to place the order. “Something special,” he tells the lady. “She got red roses the first time. Lavender, the second.”

“What are you trying to tell her?”

What does he want to say? “Something about…anticipation…desire?”

“Ah…don’t worry. I’ve got just the thing.”

“Great. They’ll be there, Monday, right?”

“Of course, Mr. Caffee. I’m sure she’ll love them.”

He trusts this shop. And Maggs has loved all her flowers so far.

.

.

The start of the week doesn’t seem so bad.

Maybe it’s because of what she hopes she’ll find when she gets to the office…or rather, the hospital. Maggs is smiling as she crosses through the sliding glass doors, and humming to herself as she opens her locker and puts up three of the four pictures of her and Michael. She’s kept the one of them kissing at home for herself, but the other three are taped up, where she can see them. For a photo booth, they came out surprisingly well. All are black-and-white, but they look happy together. Michael’s eyes, even on the gray scale, still look intense.

The duffle bag is tucked inside and she closes the locker, twists the combination lock, and heads out to the nurses station.

There are no roses this time. The disappointment swells within her and she chokes it back, trying to be as casual as she can as she walks up to the station.

“Morning, Janice.”

“Oh, Hey Maggs.” Janice hands her several patient files. The morning rotations. Various situations. Most of the patients in stable condition. One, fresh out of surgery, still working through the first doses of the high-strength opioids. Another is recovering from sepsis, etc. Each cases is unique, different, and Maggs starts the rounds, stopping at her first patient’s room and knocking first, before entering, wearing a smile she doesn’t really feel. Most days, she doesn’t have to fake it, but today, she does.

Because she’d expected roses, for some reason, and when roses didn’t appear, well…she feels almost stupid for hoping. There’s no real reason why Michael would have sent a third batch. She shouldn’t be disappointed in it, after all, they’ve been on two dates now, and she knows she’ll see him again. But still, she cannot deny that he’s made an impression. And maybe…maybe…she’s being spoiled about the situation.

The first of the rotations are done, and she makes her way back to the nurse’s station.

“Oh Maggs!” Janice turns in her chair on the other side. “I forgot to tell you…” she points to a large, tropical looking arrangement that’s been sitting on the counter since Maggs got in that morning but failed to pay much attention to, figuring they were just for decoration, or for a patient.

“You got flowers.” Janice is smirking, having notice Maggs try and fail not to look disappointment when she thought she didn’t have any earlier.

Maggs goes straight to them, and opens the card that waits.

“For you. –Michael”

These aren’t roses. They’re tall, and slender, almost bird-like with brilliant colors—oranges, reds, yellows. A dash of purple. They’re gorgeous. Exotic. She can’t help it.

Kim comes walking up.

“OH WOW! Birds of Paradise?! He got you the birds!”

“Just…tell me. What do they mean?” She asks.

Because Kim has become Maggs’ unofficial relationship whisperer and despite herself, she is curious to see what Kim makes of these. The roses were fairly obvious. Roses are universal. But these flowers are…different.

“Hold on, Ms. Impatient.” She’s looking at her phone with Maggs standing next to her, eyeing the search. Janice is leaning over the counter waiting as well.

“Hmmm…faithfulness…thoughtfulness… _.love_ …” Kim casts a side-eye at Maggs. “Did ya’ll sleep together, yet?”

“No! Well…I mean…he stayed over…”

“Oh?” Janice now. “As in—spent the night? A…sleepover?”

 “Nothing happened,” she defends. “It was late when we got home from the game. I didn’t want him driving back so late.”

“Where does he live again?” Kim asks.

“Providence.”

“Yeah…that’s an hour away. It’s not like he lives terribly far.”

“Wait—what game did you guys go to?”

“The football game,” Maggs tells Kim.

“Where’d you sit?”

“JESUS! Does that even matter?”

“Yes. It’s the difference between cheap and not cheap. Where’d ya sit, Maggs?”

“Clearly not where she SHOULD have been sitting,” Janice snickers behind them.

“Michael managed to get skybox seats,” Maggs tells them, ignoring Janice’s last comment.  

“BOX SEATS? YOU—sat in the skyboxes? Like….where the rich people sit?” Now both Kim and Janice are looking at her, identical questions on both faces and Maggs finds herself feeling a bit defensive.

“I’m sure they weren’t that much…”

Kim holds up a finger, once again, referring to her phone. Her eyes go wide.

“Oh, fuck.”

“What?”

Kim turns to Janice, showing her the phone.

“Holy shit.”

“WHAT?”

“Maggs…what does he look like?” Kim asks. “Seriously. I wanna see.”

“Not till you tell me what you two are so caught up about. It was a fucking GAME!” She’s kinda exasperated. Until Kim just straight up tells her.

“You’ve known this man less than a month. You’ve been on two dates. He’s bought you three bouquets of flowers, worth at least $500. And from what those tickets cost…he’s spent around $2,000 on you.”

 She doesn’t believe it. Doesn’t believe it until Kim gives her the phone and she sees for herself how much the tickets for the game really cost.

“I’m sure he didn’t pay that for those tickets.”

“I dunno, Maggs. At the rate you’re going, I’m going to bet he did. What does he look like? I want to see the man you’re allegedly not sleeping with who’s just dropping boatloads of cash,” Janice says.

Maggs leaves the station and goes to her locker, pulling out the picture of the two of them, smiling into the camera, and brings it back.

“This is Michael,” she says.

Kim and Janice look at the photo. Then at each other. Then at Maggs.

“He’s hot,” Kim says. But it’s said in a way that makes Maggs suspicious.

“What now?”

“Well…I just didn’t think…never mind. So, are you seeing him again?”

“I plan too.”

“Hmm…”

“Kim, what is it? I show you Michael and now you’re all…cagey. Out with it.”

“What Kim is _failing_ horribly to convey is that we didn’t think white guys were your type,” Janice tells her, but in a way that’s not judgmental. More observational.

“I don’t really have a type,” Maggs says. “But, I mean…he’s my first…”

“White guy?”

She nods.

“In Boston, no less. Well good for you, Maggs. That man is very attractive. His eyes are amazing,” Kim says.

“I know,” she says, smiling to herself, recalling the way he looks at her.

Later, when she has a break, she calls Michael.

“Hello?” It’s deep. Slightly clipped. Just the sound of his voice makes her shiver, remembering how good he felt when their bodies were together.

She wants to feel him again.

But, she gets the impression she’s calling at a bad time. He sounds a bit distracted, and she doesn’t want to keep him away from what he’s doing.

“Hi. I just…wanted to say hello.”

The tension that was there when he answered the phone dissipates, and when Michael speaks again, it’s much warmer.

“Maggs,” he tells her. “I thought I wouldn’t hear from you ‘till Wednesday.”

That’s become her calling time. When she gets off work for the week.

“I know. I just…”

“Miss me?” He’s teasing her now. She can hear it, the smile in his voice, and she blushes, grateful her skin is dark enough to hide it.

“Maybe,” she concedes.

“I miss you too,” he tells her. “Hold on a minute.”

There’s some muffled noises in the background, voices, male, and some scuffling sounds.

“Sorry about that,” he tells her when he comes back. I was…working.”

“I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“Nah. You’re important. So…Thursday?”

“Um…Wednesday night?” Maggs asks, suddenly feeling bolder. “My place.”

“I can do Wednesday night. What do you have planned?”

“It’s a surprise,” she tells Michael, feeling herself a bit at her own forwardness. “I’ll call you when I’m on the way home.”

“I’ll be there.”

Michael hangs up the phone and puts it back in his pocket.

“Now, where were we?” He asks, cracking his knuckles and walking back toward the man tied up in the chair.

Pete’s over in the corner watching, arms crossed.

“Mark, Mark, Mark…” Michael shakes his head and gets low at eye-level.

“We gave you a second chance, and you tried to fuck us over. What’s the saying? Fool me once? Shame on you? Fool me twice…”

They’re in the warehouse sector, largely abandoned buildings, skeletons of the city’s former industrial glory, silent tombs to jobs lost to globalization.

Here, no one can hear Mark scream.

.

.

When she finishes buying the ingredients she needs, and is heading back to her apartment, she calls Michael.

“On the way,” he tells her.

The excitement has been building all week. Rather, her restlessness and anxiety. Maggs puts the bags on the counter and begins pulling out pots and pans, knowing she’s got about an hour until Michael arrives. Tonight, she wants to treat him. Dinner is simple—a chicken and broccoli casserole. The prep work goes quickly, two cans of chicken, cream of mushroom soup. The water is put on to boil, a little salt and oil, and the noodles as well.

It all takes about 25 minutes. Maggs combines the elements into a pan and adds in a little frozen  vegetable mix for color before popping it into the oven to let it bake. Next, she goes to take care of herself, running a bath.

The water is hot, and she sinks in, taking her time to bathe herself, leaning into the warmth. The soap is fragrant, and she washes quietly, slowly, humming to herself. By the time she gets out, the food is wafting through her tiny apartment.

Next, comes the lotion, a scented cream of shea butter and lavender, and then her hair. Maggs debates—whether to leave it as-is, or quickly blow dry it. She opts to blow dry, and takes it section-by-section with a little heat protectant—chasing the dryer with the comb. The tight coils begin to straighten themselves out, going from multiple twisted sections that reached the top of her shoulder, to long, flowing strands that flow halfway down her back.

She takes an appraising look at it, running her fingers through. It’s been a long time since she’s straightened her hair, and is surprised with how long it is.

By the time she’s done with it, there’s a knock at the door.

 Oh crap. Michael is here. She’s still naked in the bathroom.

“Just a minute,” Maggs calls, hurridly stepping out of the bathroom and finding her silk robe, wrapping it around herself.

The flutter in her belly is back.

A short exhale, and then she opens the door, seeing Michael standing there, a bouquet of flowers in his hands.

“Oh wow,” he says, taking her in, eyes going to her hair and then slowly traveling down the rest of her, eyeing the robe.

Briefly, he wonders what’s under there, as he sees her exposed legs. The robe stops mid-thigh, and as he walks into the door, he wraps an arm around her waist, kissing her.

The flowers are placed on a table by the door as he nuzzles Maggs, inhaling her scent.

“You smell good,” he whispers, lips against her neck.

His fingers slip through her hair, enjoying the silkiness of it—air light and flowing, long.

“You’re hair too,” he tells her, walking Maggs backward, keeping her against him. “You changed it?”

Two hands come up against his chest, pushing gently, and with a groan he lets her go.

“Food,” she tells him, but smiles and takes Michael by the hand, leading him to the table.

“Sit,” she says and he does.

“What are you doing?”

But she doesn’t tell him. Just goes to the oven and pulls out the casserole and sets it on the stove. Two plates are set out as well, and she preps them, bringing them back to the table and putting one in front of Michael and one at her spot before settling down.

“You cooked…for me?” He asks.

“I hope you like it,” Maggs says, giving him a fork and watching contentedly as he quickly makes the food on his plate disappear.

“It’s great,” he tells her, getting up and going back for seconds. She smiles to herself, and finishes hers, happy that he’s enjoying himself.

Michael sits back, content as Maggs clears the dishes. His eyes go to the sway of her hips, exploring the outline of her ass through the thin fabric, and the way the belt cinches—the woman’s got a great shape, he thinks, remembering how those curves felt under his hands.

She comes back, carrying two glasses of wine, handing him one. He takes it, puts it on the table and looks up at her.

“Come here.”

He puts his hands on her waist and brings her down to his lap, leaning in to kiss Maggs everywhere his mouth can go—the exposed skin on her neck, her chest, and then her lips, tasting the wine, as he runs his hands down her sides, finding the tie, and giving it a pull.

The robe falls open and he gets his first look at her—all of her.

Maggs looks down at Michael, staring at her chest, and for a moment, she feels the urge to put her arms over her breasts, but he takes them in his.

“You’re beautiful,” he tells her gently, admiring her breasts. Smaller than he thought, but tight and high, dark nipples, too. He flicks one with his tongue, then the other as a shudder runs through her. He likes that. Likes how what he’s doing makes her gasp. His own breathing quickens as he thinks about what it’s gonna be like when he gets her on her back, legs spread….

The feel of his hands on her skin makes her tremble and her body flushes with heat. And when they go between her legs, and he touches her, slipping a finger between her slit, it elicits a sweet moan.

He raises the finger to his mouth, tasting her, watching her watch him.

“You taste good.”

The butterflies in her belly are now a swarm and she wraps her arms around his neck as he picks her up and stands in one, fluid motion, carrying her to the bed.

Michael’s kisses have made her drunk, as she watches through heavy eyes as he undresses before sliding up the bed, to cover her body with his, parting her thighs with a leg, opening her up.

“What do you want me to do, Maggs?”

She’s wet. He’s hard. It’s a simple equation. The answer obvious…

Mouth on her neck again, one hand supporting her head, the other, between her legs. A second finger joins the first as her hips jerk in response. It’s tight, a bit of discomfort because she hasn’t been intimate in a long time, at least, not with another person…

_“Michael….”_

Fuck. Just the way she says his name…

_“Michael…”_

Pure want. Better than he could have imagined, letting his fingers do the initial work as Maggs’ hips begin to move against his, and he presses against her, letting her feel how hard he is…

“I wanna be inside you…” whispered in her ear… “Lemme in, baby.”

Let him in…let him in….

Her body is reacting, and she’s so very close to giving him exactly what he wants, what she does too….but…

“Wait.”

 Breathy. Weak.

That tiny niggle again.

He hears her say something, but, presses forward anyway, the tip of his cock knocking at the entrance to her sex.

“Michael, wait…”

“Huh?”

“Do you have anything?”

_Have anything? What does she mean?_

_He’s not thinking clearly. Rather…he’s not really thinking at all…_

“Like… aids?”

“NO! I mean… a condom…protection?”

“We don’t need that.” he tells her, trying to ease her back to the place he had her.

“But...”

“No butts,” he says, parting her thighs more with his body and sliding a little lower to get into position, bumping Maggs a bit, knocking on the door…

“Shh…it’s okay...”

He covers her mouth with his to try to end her protests, kisses her until she can’t breathe and eventually lets her up for air as he pushes against her, finding the rhythm…

She moans loudly when he gets inside—the stretch a sweet ache, as her body first resists, then yields to his…

“We’re not Catholics,” she whispers, losing the battle between her mind and her body as her legs wrap around his waist and her arms across his back.

“I am,” he tells her, going deep, and eliciting a scream from her lips.

It silences the protests and he starts to sex her, pulling out slowly and going back in forcefully, drawing another yelp…then a whimper. He can feel her legs shake, her body tremble and her walls clench around him, making his cock feel like it’s getting a hug.

He buries his face in her hair to brace himself a moment, careful not to put his full weight on her, before restarting at an agonizingly slow pace.

Maggs clings to him, holding on, letting Michael lead and melting as the warmth of his body engulfs her, inside, and out. It’s the way the hairs on his chest stimulate her skin, the way he’s holding her, hugging her close to him as he…

_Makes love to her? Fucks her?_

It’s somewhere in between—too soon to say the former, but not the latter.

Their pace begins to quicken, the telltale squeaks of her bed matching the growing intensity of the rhythm, until it too rings of urgency, like the pressure that starts to swell inside her.

She can feel it rising…spreading…when Michael goes deep and finds a new place, it makes her moan against his mouth, his own breathing becoming just as hitched an uneven as hers..

_“Fuck…Maggs…”_

‘Cause it’s been a really long time since he felt anything near this good. Shannon wasn’t—just something to knock the edge off, and he’s trying to make it last for the both of him, but watching Maggs’s face, right now, lips parted, her breath shaky is a stimulant like no other and---

Fuck it.

The breaks come off as he pulls her arms down from around him and moves them over her head.

_“Look at me.”_

It’s a command, not a request.

She does. Seeing those eyes, staring down at her, darker now, tainted with naked desire. Lust.

It’s their undoing.

He goes harder. Faster. Watching her all the while, to the point that when she can’t help it, and tries to look away. He guides her face back to his, refusing to let her go.

“I want to feel you cum.”

Oh, does she.

Hard. So hard she breaks Michael’s grip and wraps her arms back around him to hold on.

So hard her body arches up, and he pins her there, under him, forcing her to feel every nerve-wrecking vibration in her body, so intense she can only utter a chocked, muted sob as her legs spasm, involuntarily.

So hard that she’s pretty damn sure the sheets are soaked, and knows he is too but can’t bring herself to care that much because the release has made her hot and drowsy and content and now she’s floating…

And maybe, somewhere off in the distance…she thinks she hears something that sounds like a cross between a yell and a growl….

Never has a vagina hugged him like that and kept squeezing and squeezing and each time her orgasm hits it goes to him too, to the point that he’s whispering in her ear saying words he kind of hopes she doesn’t remember in the morning and clutching her close and riding her pleasure along with his own.

They both end up falling into a sated, deep sleep.

.

.

Maggs wakes first. It’s the light streaming through the window that hits her eyes, like a quiet alarm.

She stretches against a solid, masculine body and opens her eyes, seeing Michael there, on his back. One arm draped lazily across her waist. He’s still sound asleep, chest rising and falling evenly, and she raises up on her forearm to get a better look at him.

The man looks like he was sculpted, she thinks, fingers tracing his shoulders—a scar, raised and gnarled-- down his arms and across his chest, outlining the tattoo there, a rose, and on his upper arm an Irish flag, the other bearing a three-leaf clover, before following the trail of hair down, past his navel.

A flinch, and he rolls over, wrapping both arms around her and pulling her back down into the bed, his face against the back of her neck, nuzzling her.

_“Mmm…”_

The contented sound makes her smile to herself, and she stops moving and waits until his grip on her relaxes, before slipping out of bed—nature’s call becoming a bit too urgent for her to ignore any longer.

A trip to the bathroom, reminds her exactly what they did last night, and she makes a note to go to the store later. Walking feels funny, and after washing her hands, she pulls her now messy and tangled hair back into a pony tail, before walking out a bit stiffly and heading to the kitchen.

There, she spots her robe on the floor where it fell the night before and picks it up, putting it back on and cinching it.

Her stomach growls.

 Hunger.

 It’s been a long time since she had sex…like that. Honestly, she’s never had sex like that. And the last time she did have sex it was…less than spectacular.

Better to let dead things stay that way, she muses as she gets started on something for breakfast.

Inwardly, her body is still humming with the lingering effects from last night and when she reflects on what they were doing, another mini-orgasm hits that makes her legs go weak and she grabs the refrigerator door to keep from falling.

 _Oh, dear_.

 _Get a grip_ , Maggs tells herself, once she’s able to stand again, and resume her task of cooking. Nothing fancy, but something to help herself out, and Michael too, when he wakes up. She’s not sure how she likes his eggs, but she thinks scrambled will do, and there’s toast with jam if he wants it, and bacon—no one can resist bacon, right?

She does this, humming quietly along to the lyrics of a song playing in her head…

What wakes him is the smell of food, followed by a sharp pang of hunger. The second sensation he feels as he slowly comes to consciousness, is the urge to pee.

It’s a hell of an urge. One eye opens to see the spot beside him empty, and he sits up to stretch.

A soft hum reaches his ears, along with the smell…and the sizzle and this time, his stomach makes a yowling sound and his bladder screams at him.

So he obeys and gets up going to the bathroom to relieve himself... and sweet relief it is. A quick wash of the hands and he goes back to the bedroom, looking around for his pants.

He spots them on the floor and pulls them on before plodding out, following the food smells and the soft humming, tipping quietly and coming up behind Maggs as she works at the stove, wrapping his arms around her and kissing the top of her head gently, then the spot where her neck meets her shoulder.

She leans back into his embrace, turns her face so she can catch his lips in a kiss.

“Good morning.”

“Morning. I didn’t know you sing.”

“I don’t.”

“You should. Sounds pretty,” he tells her, pressing against her ass to let her know what exactly is on his mind. He’s not just hungry for food.

Maggs smiles to herself, turning off the burners before managing to turn around in Michael’s embrace to face him.

“Breakfast is ready,” she says, looking up at him. He’s wearing a tiny smirk that makes him look positively devious and she traces the side of his face with her hand, trying to head him off, but…

“It looks great,” he tells her, voice low, deep, the rumble causing the still simmering embers within her from last night to flare again, and this time, he’s pleased to see it, watching in absolute fascination as Maggs goes weak in his arms and reaches for the countertop to keep from falling.

 _Gotcha,_ he thinks, grinning wide as he pulls on the tie of her robe, and it falls open for him again. Just as naked, and even sexier.

“Come here, baby,” Michael picks Maggs up as her arms wrap around his neck. He puts her in the counter, and makes quick work with his pants, They fall to the floor again as he grips her hips and pulls her down on his already hard cock, feeling a rush of adrenaline as her head goes back, and her body arches too when he enters her.

They both moan together, and he sets a bruising pace as she holds on, completely caught up in what they’re doing—this time, there’s no mistaking one for the other; he’s fucking her on the counter, hard and deep and urgent and she comes so hard she screams as he bites one of her breasts.

Afterward, they collapse on the floor, Maggs on top of Michael, one of his arms around her waist, clutching her against him. She can hear the rapid beating his heart, feel its strong pulse against the side of her face.

“Fuck,” he whispers, exhaling sharply.

For some reason, it makes her giggle as she plays with his chest hair, and he looks down his nose at the top of her head.

“Hey there.”

“Hmmm…”

“You okay?”

Oh, she’s more than okay.

Maggs shifts to look up into his face, kissing him on the chest.

“More than okay,” she tells him as they lay.

They slip back into sleep.

On the stove, the food gets cold.

Leftovers for later. Much later.

.

.

What rouses him for real, is the ringing of his phone. Maggs hears it too, and climbs off of Michael so he can get it. He reaches for his pants and pulls it out of a pocket, flipping it open, watching as Maggs gathers her robe off the floor.

“Hello?”

His eyes course over those long, shapely legs, admiring the muscles in her thighs, and the curve of her ass as she bends over.

“Michael?”

It breaks him out of the lust quickly and she shifts the phone to the other ear, getting up and pulling on his pants.

“Hi ma. Is something wrong?”

“Well, I thought you were coming home last night and when you didn’t I got worried.”

“No—ma, I’m fine. Sometimes, you know, I won’t always come home.”

“Well where are you? Have you eaten? Your brother and sister and…”

Rose goes on, and Maggs can’t help but smile, hearing Rose’s voice come through the line, and Michael’s responses on the other end.

He’s patient with his mother, she notes. While she doesn’t know the context of the conversation and can’t hear what Rose is saying—she likes that he calls his mother, “ma” and is respectful toward her. Some guys wouldn’t have even picked up the phone.

“I’ll be home tonight,” he says, casting a sidelong glance at Maggs.

“Can you bring home some cabbage and corned beef? There’s a dish I want to make,” Rose says and he nods, mouthing an apology to Maggs.

“It’s okay,” she mouths back, turning to a cabinet and pulling out two plates, partitioning their now-cold breakfast between them and popping the first into the microwave.

“Alright ma. Yeah…uh, huh….okay. I love you too.”

Finally, he hangs up.

“You’re close to your mother,” Maggs says, turning toward him and handing him a warm plate, along with a fork, before sticking the second one into the microwave.

“Yeah, I suppose so,” he says a bit guarded.

She catches it and looks at Michael.

“I like it.” She tells him. “That’s sweet. You’re relationship with her. I can tell she adores you.”

“You can tell off a one-sided conversation?” He asks.

“No. It’s the way you talk to her. I should tell her thank you.”

The timer goes off and she opens a drawer to get another fork, and her own plate, before coming to join him at the table.

“For what?” He asks, still a bit perplexed. No one who has ever met Rose would speak about her the way Maggs is, but of course, she hasn’t met his mother…yet. And the idea that maybe she should…or would is…”

“She raised a good man,” Maggs tells him. “I like her.”

A good man.

Few aside from Rose, would classify him as that. Michael knows his brother Tommy, wouldn’t. Tommy. He’s proud of the kid, has told him so on occasion too. He gave up a childhood for his little brother and sister and to a great extent, his mother as well. But Tommy has never approved. He doubts Tommy has ever even understood. And Tommy’s wife Eileen, well…she hates him. Has never made an attempt to get to know him, either, just kept her distance like the rest, assuming the worst. Even back then, he’d had a reputation that he eventually grew into. And as for his sister? Well…it’s hard to know what Mary Kate thinks. But if Michael had to venture a guess, it would be something more akin to acceptance. But he and MK have a different sort of understanding between them.

Yet, they’re all family. And he’ll die for his family. Do a hell of a lot more as well for them, too. 

Still, Michael feels a twinge of guilt in the back of his mind and wonders if Maggs knew what he did -- what he does -- if she’d still feel the same way.


	6. Chapter 6

** Chapter 6 **

The one place he doesn’t feel like being at the moment is the place he is—Freddie Cork’s house. His boss. It’s not the first time Michael has struggled to hold his tongue and bide his time. If he could go back seven years, this would all be different. He’d be the one in the big house, and Freddie would be working for him. That’s how it _should_ have been. The way he’d always envisioned it. What he’d been so close to getting. Instead, a blown deal cost him nearly everything.  Just one of many regrets, and a wrong he’s slowly, steadily working on correcting. Still, there’s not much that can be done about it right now, and while he’s got a temper like the devil he also inherited the patience of the saints—not that he quite believes in them, but he’s Catholic. It comes with the territory. Michael knows it’s only a matter of time and opportunity.

“I need you in Boston,” Freddie says and for a moment, Michael thinks he knows something. But Freddie keeps talking. “There’s an Italian that owes me money.”

“Yeah, right. The last time you sent me to get money someone owed to you I ended up having to shoot up the place to get out.” Michael rolls his eyes, not the least bit interested in being set up again and having to murder another house full of people. It was unpleasant the first time. And unlike some of them, he doesn’t take pleasure in killing. It’s a necessity, when it has to happen. But he doesn’t do it for kicks.

“That was a test, Michael. You just got back. Relax. This one is straight.” Freddie says.

“Sure it is.” He doesn’t buy it, knowing damn well his boss still views him as a threat. He is. No denial there. They have a silent agreement, though, knowing better than to step too far over the lines with each other, too much. Still, what grounds the two of them is mutual respect, if not liking. Michael and Freddie grew up together, as did everyone in their neighborhood, and that counts for something. Though lately, as Michael has taken stock of his community, he’s wondering what happened to loyalty.

That’s in short supply these days.

Everyone got greedy.

Seven years is a long time.

“Look, I’ll pay you half up front. And you can keep 40 percent of what you recoup from that little bastard. I just want to teach him a lesson,” Freddie tells him, leaning in.

Michael knows he can’t really say no to it. After all, he’s just an employee.

“Fine,” he says. “How do you want it done?”

“Just a lesson,” Freddie says. “Rough him up. No killing.”

No killing. That’s better.

.

.

“Where we goin?” Pete asks, following Michael to the car.

“Mary Rose, make sure you watch the store!” Michael calls back inside to his 15-year-old niece, standing in the doorway. It gets an eye roll that she thinks her uncle can’t see.

Michael knows what she’s doing and smirks to himself. Fifteen-year-olds don’t believe their adult figures were ever teenagers themselves.

“Don’t you roll your eyes or I’ll tell your father what you’ve been up to. Understand?” After all, he’s the reason she’s working here in the first place. A far better activity, as Michael is concerned, than hanging out with her weed-smoking friends. That, and the fact he feel guilty because it was his product bought from one of his dealers, that he’d caught Mary Rose smoking.

She flounces back inside as the men climb in the car.

“Boston,” Michael tells Pete, starting the engine. They pull out the space and head down the street and hit the highway.

“So who’s the target?” his friend asks as they ride.

“Some stiff that owes Freddie money,” Michael says dismissively.

“We ‘offing’ him?”

“Nah. Just rough him up a bit. My take is 40 percent. I’ll give you half. Sound good?”

“Money always sounds good,” Pete says, reclining his seat and leaning back for the remainder of the trip.

It’s a Tuesday. And as they get closer to Boston, Michael finds himself thinking of Maggs. She’s likely at the hospital, working. And her shift doesn’t end ‘till tomorrow night yet he’s here, and…maybe he could stop by and say hi…if she’s not too busy…

Pete’s snoring in the passenger seat, mouth open, sucking air and Michael shakes his head dismissively. Pete would sleep through nuclear war, he thinks, taking out his phone and dialing.

Ring one.

Ring two.

Ring three.

It’s 11:15 in the morning, she probably doesn’t have her phone near her he thinks about to hang up when, right after the fourth ring, “Michael?”

Her voice, husky and feminine and low, comes through, arousing him. He shifts, the phone slipping to the other ear, hands tightening on the steering wheel.

“Hey Magpie. Just seein’ how busy you were.”

He drops his to match hers, casting a side-glance at Pete. His friend is dead to the world and could probably sleep through a nuclear blast.

“Just making my rounds,” Maggs says. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, it’s perfect. I’m in town for...,” he searches for an appropriate word, “…business. Just seein’ if maybe I could stop by a minute. Say hi, if you’re not too busy.”

Maggs, smiles and leans into the phone, knowing, just by the sound of Michael’s voice, that he’s not talking about a simple greeting. Her body reacts too, a thrum of desire races down, coupled with an inadvertent keegle. “I’d like that.” It comes out almost as a breathy whisper, and her tone makes him hard, reminding him of the way Maggs looked and sounded when he made her come. Michael subtly adjusts himself. Beside him, Pete snorts, head dropping to the side, but doesn’t wake up.

“I’ll call when I’m in the lot,” he tells her. “See you soon.”

Pete wakes up when he feels the car start to slow.

“Where are we?” He asks with a drowsy stretch as they pull into a parking place at a hospital.

“Get out.”

“What?”

“I need you to disappear,” Michael tells Him. “For about…30 minutes.”

The look Michael gives him lets Pete know he’s dead serious. So, for the sake of self-preservation, he gets out the car and decides now is a good time for a walk around the block. Or two or three blocks.

.

.

Her phone rings twenty minutes later, right as she’s finishing up with a patient. She looks. It’s Michael.

“Hey, I’ll be down in a minute.”

“I’m here in lot A,” he tells her.

The files are dropped back off at the nurse’s station.

“Hey Janice, I’m taking a break,” Maggs says.

By the time she gets to the elevators, she’s nearly bouncing. And when she gets outside, and starts walking toward lot A, the tingle is back.

She spots Michael parked near the back of the lot where there are multiple empty spaces. He’s leaning against his car, arms crossed, but when he sees her he breaks out in a grin. Maggs runs toward him and jumps into his arms, legs wrapping around his waist, giving him a long kiss.

“Did you miss me?” Michael laughs and rubs noses with her, squeezing Maggs’ ass as he lowers her back down, and pulls her hips against his. A kiss to the soft skin of her neck. It elicits a little moan and he smiles against her skin, rubbing his cheek against hers. “Come on.”

They slip into the backseat of his car.

It’s hurried. Rushed. The logistics are tight, but he gets Maggs’ pants down and off and she gets his unzipped. They go for a ride.

A fast, hard one.

Hands on her ass, hers around his neck. Connected and touching.

And if anyone notices the white Cadillac rocking in the parking lot, they don’t say anything about it.

She comes hard and loud with a shudder, bucking her hips against his and he has to hold and push into Maggs deeply when he does too, feeling her walls squeezing and clenching, as he groans in her ear. “Fuck, baby…”

Afterward, they kiss softly, weakly, trying to come down from the high. She’s still on his lap, he’s still got his arms around her as she rests her head on his shoulder, fingers playing in the hair on his chest, feeling the steady beating of his heart. Hers is still racing too.

It takes a few minutes until they feel steady enough to try and re-dress.

Maggs ends up searching the car for her panties. They’re somewhere, but she can’t seem to figure out where they disappeared to, in the frenzy of their…

Lovemaking? Car sex session? She’s unsure what to call it. And after no luck spotting the underwear she decides to give them up. There are others in her locker.

Michael’s arm wraps around her waist, pulling her against him again once they’re clothed so he can smell and play in her hair as she lays against his chest.

He could get used to this.

Not… _this_ , in the car. That was fun. But _this_ …what he’s got with her. Something wholesome and sweet—free from the pressure cooker that’s his real world. It’s nice to have a lady who likes him for the man he is when he’s with her…and not the one he is when they’re apart. And even though he knows it’s a lie, it’s a lovely one, and he doesn’t want it to end. He wants to keep Maggs for as long as he can.

_Don’t say it._

“I like you, Magpie,” he tells her quietly in her ear.

Magpie. What he’s been calling her since he realized she could sing. Like a little bird. He thinks it fits her nicely.

Maggs smiles and snuggles against Michael, her fingers stroking his now-clothed thigh.

“I like you too.”

Because they’d be fools to say the other word.

.

.

Pete is coming back around the corner for the third time and just getting to Lot A when he spots Michael by the car, arms wrapped around a nurse. Or, he thinks it’s a nurse, since she’s wearing scrubs, the pink cargo fabric stretched across her hips and ass. It’s a great view, Pete thinks, cocking his head slightly to the side to get a better appraisal. He can only see her frim the back. Dark, wavy thick hair in big twisty-thingy’s. Is she Hispanic? Pete wonders? Maybe black, her skin is an even brown color, lighter than most black girls he knows, darker though than the light-skinned ones. He can’t really tell from this distance. What he can see is that she’s kissing Michael, and that’s a surprise cause to be frank—Pete didn’t think Michael would do brown girls, but it’s abundantly clear he’s definitely doing that one.

After a moment, they part, and the woman heads back toward the hospital doors. Pete watches Michael watching her as she goes.

He slows his pace, waits until she’s gone before striding up to the car. Michael turns and they both climb back in. That’s when the smell and the heat hit him.

“What the fuck, man?!”

Pete makes an exaggerated gagging sound and rolls down the window to let air in as they pull out the parking lot.

“You coulda warned me. It smells like ass in here!”

Fucking. Straight fucking is what the damn car reeks of. And he’s half-pissed half-amused at Mike’s not-so-innocent shrug.

The fresh air helps a bit and Pete moves his seat back. Only then does he spot the red fabric on the floor and picks it up, dangling it between two fingers and looking at Mike. “Really?”

Michael glances over, sees what he’s holding and snatches the panties away, stuffing them in a pocket.

Pete smirks, enjoying his friend’s discomfort. It’s night every day that Michael Caffee gets caught red-handed.

“So…is it…pink?” His fingers part in a “V” shape, tongue flicking the empty air between just to fuck with Michael, knowing damn well his friend is prudish about such things. Sure enough, he flinches back laughing, when Michael tries to hit him.

“Fuck you Pete.”

“Better her than me.”

Once he finishes laughing, he asks Michael, a bit more seriously, “So she’s Boston? She looks familiar.”

But now Michael is tight-lipped again as Pete tries to remember where he’s seen her before. Oh yeah…the woman from a few weeks ago—the one that wandered into the store needing directions.

He casts a side glance at his friend, now with two hands on the wheel staring straight ahead.

“You like this one, eh?”

No answer. Which means it’s a yes.

“Gonna introduce her to the family?”

This question earns him a long look, but still no answer.

Pete knows why. She’s pretty. He gleaned that much. Michael doesn’t fuck with ugly ones.  But he also knows what he said about her in the beginning. That she’s the wrong color. And if Michael brought her to the Hill and around their people, he’d never hear the end of it. Their folks ain’t exactly subtle about the mixing of races. Pete himself doesn’t care. But he knows Michael’s mom may object. And so would most of the fellas. If she were Italian, or German or something—that might buy her a pass. Even Asian. It’s not so much as fucking them, really. That’s okay. But Pete thinks, judging from  the lengths Michael has gone to hide this woman, that she’s not _just_ a quick fuck. He can find those anywhere.

She’s something else.

.

.

That night, Maggs is finishing her rounds when she gets handed a new chart.

“Beat up pretty badly,” the other nurse tells her. “Room 12.”

She flips through. A list of strong pain killers, an assessment of the injuries—cracked ribs, fractured jaw, abrasions.

 She goes, knocks gently on the door before entering and writes her name on the board before coming up to her newest patient and offering him a kind smile.

“Hi, Mr. Bowman, I’m Maggs. I’ll be your nurse for the evening.”

The man is clearly high off the painkillers and he turns his head in her direction but doesn’t, or can’t answer.  A brown-haired woman is seated next to him, holding his hand. Bandages cover the top of his head, stiches in his lip and jaw, and two black eyes. He looks like he’s been through hell, and she feels sorry for him, and wonders what he possibly could have done to deserve something like this. She also wonders about the people who beat him up.

“Is he going to be okay?” the woman beside him asks her, and she nods. “He will recover.”

Magellan has seen facial injuries before. Seldom do people look the same. But she doesn’t tell the woman that.


	7. Chapter 7

** Chapter 7 **

A day later, Wednesday night, and Michael is packing a bag. Rose walks up the stairs and stands in the doorway observing her son, arms crossed.

“Oh, so you’re doing sleepovers now?”

He turns to her, bag in hand and tries to gives his mother a kiss on the cheek. She turns her face away.

“I’ll be back.”

“I don’t know where your mouth has been. Who is she, Michael?” Because Rose is a mother to two sons and a daughter. And she knows. Call it parental intuition. Michael at 38 is acting like the Michael at 16 when he was sneaking out the house in the middle of the night to fuck Kath. And to this day, Rose still doesn’t like Kath. Never has, never will. Because as far as Rose Caffee is concerned, the little skank wasn’t good enough for her eldest son back then, and the passing years have only proven she’s still not. After all, if she was _really_ Michael’s girl, and she _really_ loved him, she’d have waited for him to come back, instead of getting on with Eddie Parry.

Poor Eddie for marrying a hussy. And that’s a better descriptor for Kath than Rose thinks she deserves.

She would never tell Michael, but Rose knew by the look on his face when he came back from visiting Kath upon his return that he was heartbroken when he saw her with two kids that weren’t his. Always the more emotional son, Michael wears his heart on his sleeve—even when he was a child. Hot-blooded, firey. Tumultuous. Cursed with passion so great it got him into more trouble but ever the defender, her Michael. A force unto himself. Headstrong and unwavering in his loyalties, even to people Rose doesn’t think deserve it. Or him. She knows better than most what and who, her first-born is. What he had to become for the sake of their family. And she loves him ever-more for it, though it also at times makes her feel such guilt. So she hides it the only way she knows how, mothering.

Even now, she remembers Michael as a child.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” She’d asked him once, when he was seven.

“I wanna be a firefighter!” A wide smile, deep dimples and big, bright blue eyes looked up to her as he held out a drawing of a fire engine proudly. She’d framed that fire engine. Still has it today in Michael’s room. The one she kept just for him, filled with all his trophies. Athletic. Strong. Tall. Whip-smart with an attitude to match. Defiant to the end. He would have made a great firefighter. Now today, he starts some, puts others out. But the fires are just a metaphor for what his life has become.

Her son.

Her first-born.

She feels guilty. It’s why she turns the other cheek. Allows him to be what he’s become. Her protector. Her provider. A boy, forced to become a man at such a young age. Michael sacrificed his childhood for his mother, brother and sister. All she can give him now is love, though she doesn’t believe there’s enough to make up for the past.

Rose comes up and places a hand on his cheek, looking at him.  “Who says it’s a she?” He asks, removing the hand and slipping by her to head out the room. She shakes her head and follows.

 “I gave birth to you, Michael James Caffee. Don’t think I don’t know what you’re up to.” She tells him as he leaves.

“I’ll be back Friday, Ma.” Another peck on the cheek and he’s down the drive, hopping in the car and pulling off, as Rose watches from the doorway, shaking her head.

It’s definitely a woman. She knows that much. Michael being cagey about it is something that’s drawn her curiosity. So, she calls Tommy—her other son.

“Do you know about the woman Michael is seeing?” She asks when he picks up.

“No. I don’t. It’s Michael, ma. You know how he is.”

Humph. She does. Michael doesn’t bring his girlfriend’s around—there’s really only ever been one that he did. It was Kath. She doesn’t think she likes this one either.

“He’s been disappearing to Boston for the past few weeks,” she tells Tommy. “I’m _sure_ it’s a woman.”

“Well, what do you want me to do about it? If he wants to tell us, he will. Ma, Michael is a grown man.”

“He’s your brother.”

“And it’s not my job to keep tabs on who he’s fucking.”

“Thomas Andrew Caffee!!”

She hangs up on him. Still sore about it. Not that she’s jealous, but she just got her baby back after seven long years, nights believing he was dead. And Rose isn’t just about to hand him over to some slut who’s probably just using him. She’s protecting Michael.

Rose almost thinks it would be better if it were anyone except Kath. She desperately hopes it’s not Kath. That woman is nothing but trouble.

.

.

The key is under the mat, and he lifts it and unlocks the door, walking inside. Maggs told him where she left it for him when they spoke earlier, noting she’d likely be late. Her final shift was going long. So he enters a darkened apartment, and turns on the lights, putting his bag in the bedroom and coming back out to figure out what to do until she gets home. It’s already close to 9 p.m. and he thinks she’ll probably be hungry.

Maybe he should feed her.

He can cook a bit.

A rummage through the refrigerator shows she needs to go grocery shopping. But there’s some sausage and bacon leftover from the weekend, and he manages to find some cheese, pasta noodles and sauce in the cupboards. That can work.

A little bit more searching, and he’s got the pans.

An hour later, as he’s finishing, he hears a key in the lock, and the door opens to reveal a worn-out looking Magellan her thick hair frizzy. She’s still in scrubs and remind him of the tv character with the school bus. Ms. Frizzle. But a far, far sexier version

“Oh, Michael,” she says, dropping her duffle bag on the couch and coming up to him, checking out his handiwork. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“I figured you’d be hungry,” he tells her, pulling her into a hug.

Sure enough, her stomach rumbles and he hears it, and smiles at her. “See?”

Maggs laughs, the work week slowly starting to fade.

“I don’t know what I want more. Food, a shower, or a bed.”

“How about a shower, then food, then bed?” He offers.

She straggles off toward the sleeping area and he turns off the burners, and starts draining the noodles. The water in the bathroom comes on, and he catches a glimpse of her naked form as she comes out the bathroom a moment, then back in. Breasts tight, perky. Stomach flat, hips…the cleft of her butt when she turns. 

Hmmm…he can do more than just cook for her.

The grin that crosses his face is lascivious. The noodles and sauce are covered and he goes to the bedroom and takes off his shoes and clothes, before opening the door to the bathroom, slipping in. The steam has already permeated the surfaces, clouding the space and it’s humid. The shower curtain is drawn, Maggs already inside.

He pulls it back and she yelps and turns, looking startled and covering her breasts as he steps in.

“You scared me!”

“Didn’t mean too. Here. Let me help.”

Her body is glistening from the water, soap bubbles clinging to her skin and he takes the time to admire every part of her, liking the way the water courses down her spine, slides between the cheeks of her ass, down her legs…around her breasts…

She quietly gives him her loofa and turns around to let him wash her.

What he ends up doing…well…she’s slippery and soft, and she rests her back against his chest as Michael runs his hands around her shoulders, arms, cupping and massaging her breasts, belly, stomach, one hand lingers there as the other slips between her legs.

“Michael…”

“Umm hmmm?”

He slides a finger along the slit, gently spreading the lips to find Maggs’ clit. She jumps a little, and he splays his hand on her belly, firming up his grip, keeping her there.

“Still tired, Magpie?” His lips tickle the back of her neck.

She likes him calling her that, and smiles to herself, leaning into his touch, his head resting on top of hers.

“Mmmm…”

It’s quiet approval. He knows she does and reaches around her, turning the water off, before stepping out the tub and extending a hand to help her out too.

They’re both wet. And he’s good with that. He wants her wet, this time, embracing her from the back and walking her out to the bedroom, bumping her toward the bed.

She’s still tired, but decides to let Michael do whatever he wants to do.

He sits her down and spreads her legs before puts his face between them, tongue slowly spreading down the slit, parting the delicate folds and sliding his tongue between them. Maggs lays down, and moans as she threads her fingers in his air, and arches against his mouth.

Their movements are slow, languid, and he gets to see her now, can see what she looks like here, silky and neat, shaved and he gets a good close-up when he spreads her with his fingers and flicks her clit—a soft, brownish-pink—while sliding a finger inside.

She tastes like a woman. It’s heady, and he feels almost drunk off the lust. The touch of her hands on his shoulders, her fingers in his hair and the back of his neck, encouraging. He could keep doing her like this forever.

Eventually, Michael makes his way back up, kissing the insides of both thighs, her stomach, chest, breasts, before finding her lips. Arms and legs wrap around him, and he likes this too—this slow, sweet lovemaking they’re doing, skin-to-skin, mouth-to-mouth, face-to-face. It’s like they’re breathing together, like they can tell what the other thinks and feels, and never has she felt so intimate with another person.

Michael Caffee is inside her—literally. Her body, her heart, her head. And when they come, it’s together. He watches her face, feels her back arch and rides with her through their shared orgasm, before falling asleep. The food on the stove forgotten once again.

He wakes up sometime in the night and goes to the kitchen for a glass of water. Seeing the covered dishes, he puts them in the refrigerator, and goes back to sleep.

.

.

Michael is laying on his stomach and when Maggs wakes she sees him still facing her, sleeping soundly. If she couldn’t feel his breath on her cheek, she’d swear he was dead he’s just that still, and only when she shifts and the blankets fall from around them, does the very large Celtic cross tattooed across his entire back come into view. She saw it before, in the kitchen when he was talking to his mother and there have been glimpses. Now, though she has a fuller view.  The deep scar cuts it almost in two, the skin here raised—a wound that didn’t quite heal right.

She traces it with a finger, from the deltoid and trapezius muscles on his shoulder, down and across the lumbar, and around to the oblique. It feels violent, and she shudders, not out of revulsion, but something else. This, she feels, wasn’t an accident. It’s not precise enough to be surgical. So it must be something else…

Michael’s eyes flit open and he jerks a bit at the sensation of touch to see Maggs propped up on an elbow resting her hand on the side of her face, looking at his back. He stares until her eyes drift to meet his.

“What happened?” She asks softly.

So sweet, he thinks, rolling over to his side mimicking her posture so they can be more even.

“A life lesson,” he tells her, as honestly as he dares.

Her eyes go to his chest, touching the other tattoos there, the rose and thorns, and then to his shoulder, the three-leaf clover.

“I’m lucky.”

“You really are Catholic,” Maggs marvels.

“Yeah. Born into it. The nuns at my school probably threw a drinking party when I graduated.” Michael smirks, remembering those days of youth. He was the hell raiser. Tommy, the good boy, and Mary Kate, the cute popular girl. Together, the three of them ran St. Pious. Michael was the ringleader. And even back then, maybe it was already embedded in them all what each Caffee would become.

In middle school, he, Tommy, Declan and Freddie formed their own “band of brothers” they called themselves. They started by selling candy on the school yard. Buy it in bulk, charge a markup for each piece individually. They’d made a killing. Michael saw a way to make money. Most of it went to his mom. Some went to Tommy and Mary Kate for lunch money. School clothes. Books. The stuff that sometimes, Rose just couldn’t afford to get them. As they got older, Michael’s money also helped score girls who liked the boys that could buy them stuff.

He still remembers the first whiff of pussy he got when he was 14. Two stupid teenagers trying to figure out where it all fit. The nuns wouldn’t tell them anything, but Freddie’s dad had magazines, allowing them to work out some of the logistics.

And in high school, it was Kath’s father’s car in the middle of the night.

That memory is tinged with regrets. Kath. God, did he love her, but Michael knows he can’t argue with seven years. Hell, he can’t fault her that she hadn’t waited. Everyone except his mother had written him off for dead.

Michael chuckles, recalling the days of sidewalk chalk and hopscotch, double-dutch and outside barbeques. That’s not the neighborhood anymore, though. Sadly. Still, he’s got more fond memories than bad ones, though the bad ones still linger. Especially when he remembers his father.

Maggs stays quiet, listening as he talks out loud, not realizing he’s doing so as he reflects, and she feels close to him in the moment. It’s so similar to her own childhood.

“Did you guys wear uniforms, too?”

“Oh yeah. Heavy black sweaters, starched shirts. I always got holes in my pants—the knee. Tommy and Mary Kate liked to stay clean, but I didn’t care about getting dirty.”

She laughs, imaging what a little Michael must have been like.

“I was the girl on the jungle gym they made wear shorts ‘cause I keep hanging upside down on the monkey bars. We had these horrible plaid jumpers.”

“Mary Jane shoes and white knee high socks?” Michael winks at her. “Where’d you go to school?”

“Patten Academy, back in California. I swear I can still recite Genesis by heart.”

He laughs. “Prove it.”

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth, and the Earth was without form, and darkness was upon the face of the deep.”

“King James, huh?”

“Don’t you know it? None of that New International stuff. Our nuns weren’t having it.”

They chuckle, and Maggs tells him how she loved the Joy Bells when they had to go to service, and he tells her about the many times he earned the paddle.

“I can tell. You seem like a bit of a bad boy, Michael Caffee.”

He takes her hand and slides it under the sheets, letting her get a handful, watching as she shakes her head, letting the fluffy twists fall into her face.

“Blushing, now?”

“You’re a mess.”

Their fingers lace together, and she looks down at their hands, catching sight of the scratches and bruises on his knuckles.

“What happened?”

“Hm?”

“Your hands. What happened here?” her thumb grazes the skin on top, and he quickly tries to downplay it.

“Ah, doing some housework for Ma. No big deal.” He won’t tell her how he got the bruises on his hands. The job got done.

What makes Michael finally roll over to get out of bed, is the simultaneous growl of his stomach and the urge to piss. Maggs admires his ass as he plods toward the bathroom. It’s a lovely view, all sinewy muscle, and strong thighs. She tingles again.

And that too is a reminder of something else. They need to…talk.

When Michael comes out she goes to relieve herself and once she touches down there, she winces a bit—not from pain, but from the…residuals still lingering from their sex.

When Maggs comes back, she climbs back in the bed to join him. They kiss, and his hand goes to her waist, touching her belly again.

“Wait.”

“Uh oh. I know what that means.”

She breaks the kiss, and strokes the side of his face, tracing his jaw line, the bow of his lips and the angle of his nose, his cheeks.

_God this man…_

_“_ We really should use something,” she tells Michael.

“Why? No need.”

“Yes, there is.” At this Maggs is insistent. “Michael, I don’t want us to get pregnant.”

“Then you won’t have to get pregnant.” He reaches for her hips again, gives them another pull to get her closer to him. She comes sliding over but doesn’t fully yield.

“Um... how do you figure that?”

“I’m Catholic. We have our ways?”

This time, she rolls her eyes, and ultimately, rolls away from him a bit.

“Stop it. Not funny. You cannot possibly believe that.”

“Maggs, I don’t have any kids. And if you don’t want them you won’t get them.”

“And tell me, exactly how does that work? I’m not buying a Plan B after every time we have sex!”

“What?” Michael blinks at her, confused. “You took one?”

“Not the first time—it was a week after my cycle, but the other day, yes. Michael…”

The look on his face! Like she stole his puppy or something. It’s almost enough to make Maggs cave. Almost, but not quite.

“Michael, either pull out, or put something on that thing.”

“But I don’t want too.” He’s giving her eyes, and now sounds like a petulant child. Maggs laughs, getting up to put on clean underwear and a bra. He watches her from the bed, sitting up, bare chested and she decides not to look because a naked Michael Caffee is far more dangerous than a clothed one.  “You don’t like the way I do you?”

“It’s not a matter of _liking_ ,” Maggs says with exhasperation, looking over her shoulder at Michael. “It’s a matter of having baby Caffee’s running around. And we just started…”

_Dating? Are they dating now?_

The mention of baby Caffee’s makes his imagination wander.

He was almost a father, once. But he and Kath were way too young and way too stupid. He’d taken her to the clinic and sat with her during the procedure and held her afterward as they grieved in his car a long while before taking her home. They never told anyone about that. Her father was strict and his mother, well…he can only imagine how that conversation would have gone if she knew what they did. Rose has never liked Kath. His mother has never liked any woman he brought home—because if he brought them home, it meant he was serious. And Rose viewed that as a threat to her dominance as the only woman in her favorite son’s heart.

“What are you thinking about?” Maggs is looking at him suspiciously, and he gets up to give her another squeeze, kissing her neck.

“Fine,” he tells her, willing to compromise. “How about I pull out?”

She ignores that and Michael grins, moving off to get dressed. It’s not no.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

“Mike.”

No answer.

“Hey, Mike!”

“Huh? What?” He looks up to see everyone watching him curiously.

“Glad your back with us,” Freddie says drily, from his seat at the head of the table. “I was saying, there’s a supply truck coming in. I want you on it.”

He drums his fingers on the table, slightly irritated. “Why can’t someone else do it?”

“Because,” Freddie says, staring at Michael pointedly, “you’re the best at cleaning up shit that goes south.”

 _Oh great. I’m the fucking janitor_ , Michael thinks grimly. This life is beginning to get stale to him. He’s starting to realize how much he’s missing. Freddie gets to be the one with the wife and two kids. He gets stuck handling the garbage and living with his mother.  It’s not why he came back.

Once out of Freddie’s shop and driving off, Michael makes a call.

“Hello?”

Maggs picks up on the second ring, having taken to carrying her phone with her on the floor.

“Hey Magpie, I’m going to have to push our date back,” he tells her. “I’ve got a job that just came up. Don’t know when I’ll be done.”

“Oh, okay,” he hears the disappointment. It makes him smile and cringe at the same time. Smile, because he loves that she looks forward to him, cringe, though, because he hates to disappoint her.

It’s been three months since Magellan Anjulique Taylor wandered into his store lost, and he couldn’t be happier for it. She’s got him imagining the day when he can come home to a place that’s not his mother’s house, sleep in a bed actually big enough for him, and roll over and see her every day. Now that’s a far better proposition.

They end up not seeing each other that weekend. But Michael makes sure there are flowers waiting for her when she goes to work Monday morning, just as there have been flowers for her for the past twelve Monday’s. Today marks Monday number 13.

And when she sees them, she smiles, knowing they’re from a man she likes. Really, really likes. Yet she’s still so nervous about the other word.

.

.

“So…when do we get to meet the guy?” Kim asks. They’re at lunch in the hospital cafeteria. It’s a late one. Or, more like a 2 a.m. food break. “Yeah. I’m curious too. You’ve just been so…,” Janice makes a sweeping motion across her face, and Maggs grins.

“Glowy,” Kim finishes.

“I’m not glowing. It’s just been hot.”

“Right. Whatever you say. I’m just saying…you look very, very satisfied,” Kim says, spearing a cherry tomato and popping it in her mouth.

“I’ve got no complaints.”

“Umm hmm. So… are you two… dating now? Is it official? Or are you still trying to claim otherwise?” Janice asks.

“I’ve never said that!” Maggs shakes her head.

“Well, so what are you guys doing, then? Dating? Casual sex?”

“I don’t do casual sex.”

“So you’re dating then,” Janice says matter-of-factly. “It’s okay to date, you know. Ask Michael if he has a brother.”

“Ask Michael if he’s got two brothers,” Kim adds.

“He’s got a brother and his brother is married. And his sister is too. So nope. All Caffee’s are taken.” They all share a laugh at that.

Yet Janice and Kim, bless their hearts, have spoken to what Maggs is wondering about. She knows she likes Michael. Really likes him. And later, when she’s own downtime and laying in the nurses break room on one of the cots, she starts to go over what she knows about Michael. Really knows about him.

That he’s Catholic. Went to private school. That he lives in Providence, an hour away. That he’s got a younger brother who’s in the state house, and a sister who is a social worker. A mother who adores him, and he’s a businessman. Owns at least one store.

Isn’t that all to know?

Yet, as she drifts off into sleep, she thinks about the scar on his back and shoulder. “Life lessons,” Michael had said. Maggs wonders what sort of lesson is taught like that.

.

.

He’s got the weekend planned already. Rented the house and it’s stocked with everything they’ll need the next few days.

Michael knocks on the apartment door before using the key she gave him to enter.

Maggs is moving around, making sure she’s got everything for the next few days. Two suitcases stand by the door and he eyes them, eyebrows up, then looks at her.

“It’s only a few days, Magpie.”

She gets defensive. “It’s not that much, Michael.”

The suitcases aren’t carry-on size and he just smirks at her slightly put-out look before kissing her on the cheek and picking up one of the not-surprisingly heavy bags.

“I’ll be right back.”

Soon, everything is loaded in his trunk and his most precious cargo secured in the passenger seat.

“So, where exactly are we going?” Maggs asks, as Boston begins to fade away. They’re traveling on 95 and after a while, Michael takes the turn from the highway onto US-1.

“It’s a surprise,” he tells her. “Sit back, and enjoy.” So she does.

 As they go, the scenery begins to change. The city gives way to old factory towns, and after a while longer, the old factory towns yield to wide swaths of land, rocky beaches and cottages that sit precariously on rocky ledges. They’re on the coast.

“It’s so pretty,” she says, looking at the scenery. Michael looks at Maggs.

“Very.”

They drive into a little fishing village with a main street, and down a cobbled road, before eventually coming to a stop in front of a large but low, broad house with a gabled roof. It’s painted white, with a bright blue door. And a short picket fence around it.

 She loves it immediately and climbs out of the car before Michael even has the chance to cut off the engine.

He does, and gets out, with a smile as Maggs turns to him grinning.

“This is the surprise?”

“Yeah. You like?” He asks, knowing as she gives him a long look, that she does. It’s in the way she sidles up to him and wraps her arms around his waist, standing on tip toes to give him a kiss.

They kiss a while, his tongue slipping between her lips to meet hers, hands reaching down to cup her butt and press her close.

“Stop it,” Maggs smiles against his mouth and pulls away a bit, knowing where Michael is going.

“What?” He gives her innocent eyes, and she laughs, taking his hand and pulling him to the door. Michael enters a code on a panel off to the side and a hatch opens, dropping down keys. He opens up the house and Maggs gasps when they go inside.

“Oh, my God.”

It’s bright and airy, exposed wood beams on the ceiling, and rich, brown hardwood floors. There’s a red brick fireplace on a wall with bookcases lined on either side of it, and a blue, Persian rug on the floor. The furniture is simple but elegant and the kitchen, Maggs thinks taking a look at it—is something she’d love to have.

A walk around reveals three bedrooms, three and a half bathrooms, all sparkling and gorgeous. Perfect.

“I could live here,” she says, taking it all in. Michael comes up behind her and pulls her close. She leans back into his warmth, her hands over his and they sway together a moment. A day old stubble on his jaw brushes against her cheek as he nuzzles her.  

“I could too.” He leaves the rest unsaid, but she thinks she knows the rest. That they could. Together.

It makes her shiver. There’s promise in his words, a desire. So affectionate, she thinks turning to face him, looking up into those sharp, blue eyes. She traces the outline of his face with a finger, the fine lines, the strong jaw, loving everything about him.  So completely different than any man she’s ever been with, though there have been only a few.

Michael makes her feel special. Beautiful, and for the first time in a long time, she knows she’s very much loved.

He goes to kiss her and she leans in.

The trail of clothes and shoes marks the path to the bedroom, where he makes love to Maggs. Long. Slow. Gentle. Soft sighs, whispered words of passion, hitched breath and muffled moans. Varying positions, but the constant, is the way they stay close, body-to-body, touch-to-touch, and he gets her high—higher than she’s ever been.

They sex until they absolutely can’t, and lay spooned together, Maggs tucked into his body, his mouth on the back of her neck, his hand on her belly.

They’re drifting in the reflective place—the dangerous space—unguarded and open. When truth comes easier than the lie. There’s something Michael wants to know. Now is as good a time as any.

It goes back to something he noticed when they first met. How she came to Boston, of all places.

“Why’d you run, Magpie?”

It comes out slow. Like a drunken drawl almost. She shifts in his arms, pondering his question. Why Boston?

“It was as far away as I could get from him,” she tells Michael, eyes closed. They’re both still. Not moving. Just talking. A moment of honesty.

“What’d he do?”

_So much, she thinks, trying to figure when or how to even begin._

“We were engaged. I was planning a wedding. Trying to buy a house.”

That should have been the first clue, when the lender said they were having problems verifying Lamar’s employment, and would have to use her history instead. Lamar had played it off, so well. “That’s okay,” he’d said. “Our names would still be on the deed, right?” The lender said yes. And he turned to Maggs. “We’ve got our joint account,” he’d told her. “We can use my money, your history. It’s fine.”

“Every day Lamar went to work,” Maggs says. “Every day he came home. I’d been to his office. I’d met his co-workers.”

A lie. And a sham, all of it.

The lie came crashing down the night police raided their apartment.

“They had guns out. They were yelling. They pushed me to the floor. Someone had their foot on my back, pulled my arms so hard they dislocated my shoulder.”

She was crying, screaming, pleading for them not to kill her. She saw Lamar face down beside her.

“We were both arrested. I was terrified.”

Afraid, because she didn’t know what was happening. Or why. By the time they got to the police station, she was nearly hysterical, crying for Lamar. Confused.

“Later, they told me they’d been watching us. Tracking the deposits into our account. I told them they’d made a mistake, and they laughed at me.”

Threatened her with prison. Told her she was facing money-laundering charges. She told them she was a nurse. That again, they had the wrong people. They told her Lamar said it was all her fault. That it was her.

“I had to hire a lawyer.”

Ultimately, she was released. They tried to get her to testify, but she couldn’t speak to what she didn’t know.

“I later learned he was a drug dealer.”

That his “office” was just a front for how he covered his money. And it all made sense. Because he’d submitted false 1040’s to their lender, who’d later flagged it.

Maggs was released into the arms of her mother. The wedding was called off. She sold her engagement ring. But she couldn’t go back to that apartment. Couldn’t go back to that life. She couldn’t believe that a man she loved, someone she’d been with for so long, could deceive her—it wasn’t just a physical hurt, but a deep lingering sense of distrust.

She was staying with her mother when, three weeks after the arrest, the doorbell rung.

“And I answered it, and he was there.”

Lamar was there.

“I did it for you,” he’d told her, when she tried to slam it in his face. He blocked it with his foot, pushing through.

“I built this for you,” he said coming toward her. “It’s good now. I’m out. Let’s do this again.” She’d said no, tried to push him away but he grabbed her arm, her injured arm, yanking her forcefully. That’s when they fought. A physical fight. It’s when he hit her, slapped her so hard it made her buckle. And all she knew was to defend herself. So she did.

The fight and her screams drew a neighbor’s attention, and police burst through the door right as Lamar had her pinned to the ground.

They dragged him out, and he was yelling at her, calling her ungrateful, furious that she didn’t recognize his sacrifice. And the last thing he said—that when he got out he’d come find her.

 It was a different Kevin. She didn’t recognize that man and was terrified.

“So I left,” she tells Michael quietly. “I left and got as far away as I could.”

He gives her a squeeze of reassurance, feeling both deeply conflicted and incredibly protective of her at the same time.

“If he ever shows up,” Michael tells her, “I’ll take care of it.” He says it with a degree of certainty that leaves her with no doubt Michael means what he says.

Now though, he’s worried. More worried than he’s been before. While he’d never put Maggs in the same position, the similarities between himself and Lamar are disturbingly similar. He’s dealt with cops before, but he’s never put his family at-risk, not to that degree, ensuring their protection from his own problems and choices.

It feels like this, what he’s got right now, just moved a bit further away. This place. This woman. This house. Because she’ll never forgive him if he ever finds out. A part of him wishes he’d never asked. But he needed to know.

A kiss to her temple. Another squeeze—possessiveness. Protectiveness.

“Who was she?”

“Hm?”

“Yours,” Maggs says, drowsily. “I told you mine. You tell me yours.”

“Kath,” he whispers. “Her name was Kath.”

“Did you love her?”

“Deeply,” he confesses.

“Why?”

“Because she knew who I was. And she loved me anyway. She was the only woman who didn’t judge me because of what I did. The only one who saw me for who I am.”

“What happened?”

At that, there’s guilt. Deep, roiling guilt. “I messed up. I had to leave. I left her…and when I came back, she’d moved on.”

Children, not his. A husband, not him.

Feeling his body tense, Maggs turns to face him, and he looks down at her, lips drawn, brow furrowed. There’s real grief, written across his face.

“I’m sorry,” she tells him, placing a hand on his cheek. “I didn’t mean to bring up something bad.”

But he shakes his head. “Not bad. It’s just reality. And,” he says, brushing her nose with his, then the side of her face, and ultimately, resting his forehead against hers. “Maybe it was meant to be that way. Cause I never would have met you.”

“And without Lamar,” Maggs says, “I wouldn’t have met you.”

.

.

They spend three days at the house.

A few trips into town for groceries, and shopping, dinner. Maggs makes breakfast, they drink coffee on the porch watching the boats in the harbor. She sits on Michael’s lap, the two of them bundled together in a blanket.

Saturday night, their last, Michael builds a fire, and they end up having sex in front of it, until they’re sweating, the warmth contrasting with the cold blowing off the ocean.

****


	9. Chapter 9

** Chapter 9 **

Maggs is pulling on her shirt the next morning when a stray thread gets caught in the slender gold necklace she’s wearing and snaps it.

“Oh no!”

“What?”

She holds the broken chain up for him to see.

“It’s an easy fix,” Michael tells her. “Come on. There’s more than enough stores than can do it.”

The drive back is a little under two hours, and eventually the city comes into view.

Her neighborhood is in a mixed community in Boston—some converted factory buildings, a few old world shops mixed with more upscale ones, on the verge of being hip but still a secret to most, and they walk a little longer stopping in a shop for some coffee and a little food, before setting out again.

A few more, and Michael spots the kind of store he likes, and beckons to Maggs.

“Are you sure?” She asks, eyeing it warily. It looks old, darker lighting, with heavy, thick carpet, but Michael nods reassuringly. “Yeah. These are the best places, trust me.”

So she does.

There’s a short, squat man behind the counter and he looks up as they walk in.

“Can I help you?”

He’s wearing what looks to Maggs like a leather apron with goggles on top of his head and steps from around the counter. Michael hands him Maggs’ necklace.

“Can you fix it?”

“Sure. Do you want to pick it up today?”

“Yeah, if you could.”

He’s talking to the shop owner and Maggs wanders off, taking a look inside the cases. She’s intrigued. There’s a lot here, some older looking pieces for sure, thick gold rings, that look a little dull, and newer brighter pieces—diamonds rubies. A very large diamond ring that’s at least a few carats---

Michael’s talking to the jeweler, voice low glancing toward Maggs.

“You got anything that might fit her?” He asks.

“Something big?” The shop owner asks, taking his own appraisal of the woman. On the taller side, shapely. Nice sepia skin…

“Diamonds. White gold,” he tells Michael. “Maybe a color…something bright—make it pop.”

“Whatcha got?”

The necklace is placed on a desk and Michael moves, allowing the owner to step out and around him.

“Wait here.”

Maggs’ face is buried in the cases, eyeing it all. So pretty. She sold jewelry for a while in college, and knows real when she sees it, and this store, while unimpressive from the outside, is definitely worth it. So much of the jewelry is vintage, a quality that isn’t made anymore. Michael leans against a glass case watching her eye the stuff inside.

The owner comes back with a small case and opens it for Michael’s appraisal.

Goddamn. He struck pay dirt, he thinks eyes skimming along.

It’s way too soon for a ring—he doesn’t want to scare her off, and the necklace with the double rows of diamonds…she’d likely never wear it—too fancy, and she’s a nurse. Plus, he’d hate to have to murder someone for trying to rip it off her neck…earrings.

 Several pairs of solitaires, boring—he’s done that before, but there’s a pair that look like flowers that intrigue him.

“What are those?”

“Earring jackets.”

“What from when her ears freeze or something?” He says with a smirk.

“No. Here.”

The owner demonstrates, taking one of the solitaires and fitting it in the open space on the earring, creating a flower effect.

“See?”

“I’ll take ‘em.”

“Both?”

“Yeah, both.”

He casts a furtive look over at Maggs, who is now admiring the other antiques in the store—a ship made of Jade.

Michael doesn’t even bat an eye at the tab and he pays for Maggs’ necklace repair as well. That only takes a few more minutes and when it’s done he puts the little box in his pocket and calls her back over, placing the chain back around her neck and fastening it.

“Better?”

That winning smile that makes him melt.

“Very. How much?” She asks the owner. But the old man just smiles at her. “Taken care of. You two have a good day.”

“Don’t,” Michael says as they leave the store.

“Don’t what?”

“Say what you’re gonna say. It’s my job to take care of you, remember?”

She does. And resolves not to protest him paying for the necklace, unaware of what else he bought.

She stays blissfully unaware until that night, when she’s heating up the leftovers and he comes up to her, hands behind his back, grinning like a child that can’t keep a secret.

“What is it?”

“Guess.”

“You bought me a puppy.”

“Do you want a puppy?”

She laughs.  “Michael Caffee, you’re up to no good. Out with it.”

And he hands her the box. Her heart stops when she opens it and sees what he did.

“Oh. My…”

Words fail.

The earrings are gorgeous. Big, bright, and sparkly, even now, in the low light, they’re radiant.

“Wha…”

“Do you like them?”

Does she? Yes. Very much, but holy hell…Maggs knows damn well these are not inexpensive and mentally she hears Kim’s voice running about prices and…the tingle of discomfort rears its head because something doesn’t feel quite right and this time she can’t push it back or ignore it and it’s way too soon for this type of thing and…

“Michael, no.”

Reluctantly, she gives them back.

“Why not?” His brow furrows as he frowns, looking at her. “You don’t like them?”

“It’s not that I don’t it’s just…”

_Too soon._

_He’s running through money like it’s raining and…_

“Magpie, it’s a gift. Accept it.”

“I can’t. It’s too much.”

“Why’s it too much?”

“Because we haven’t…been together long enough. I mean…we’re still trying to get to know each other, and…”

She bites her lip.

Michael presses her. “What else do you want to know? You know my name. Where I’m from. You know I have a brother and sister, and a mom who I live with. What else? I own several businesses, Maggs. I can afford this. What else do you want?” He’s staring at her with an intensity that makes her shiver a bit.

What else…

“…But I haven’t met your family,” she says looking up into ice blue eyes. “I’ve never been to your home, and Michael, really…it’s way too much. Too soon. I’m just not comfortable accepting these. I really feel like we’re rushing.”

There.

She knows better. Knows that they’ve gone way too fast, faster than she’s accustomed too and while Michael seems content with it, Maggs worries she’s giving up too much autonomy and while he’s spoiled her, spoiling her, she just needs something _more_ than that, something more solid, more firm to reassure her that this isn’t just some daydream that will be interrupted because in her heart, she’s hoping and praying its real. She wants it to be. But she also knows people don’t always get with they want.

Even this weekend. They were so close, but neither said it. It’s what hangs between them, waiting for one or the other to be the first. She wants surety. And it doesn’t come in the form of diamonds, or skyboxes, or flowers, or expensive dates.

He slowly withdraws the box, and closes it as Maggs studies the floor.

“Hey.”

He touches her chin gently and tilts her face to his so he can look at her. “Do you want to meet my family?”  Because it’s been three and a half months since he met Maggs and Michael Caffee is playing for keeps.

“I do,” she whispers as he kisses her lips, and hugs her. She hugs him back. “Then I’ll make it happen for you. How about next Sunday?”

A nod. He leans down to whisper in her ear. “Three more months and it’ll be a ring.”

Maggs hides her grin against his skin, feeling overjoyed at the prospect.


	10. Chapter 10

** Chapter 10 **

“Hey, who got flowers?”

Diane comes waddling up to the nurse’s station, one hand on her extremely pregnant belly. All of this started because of Diane’s baby shower but it’s the first time the two women have been on shift together in more than three months.

“Maggs has a _man_ ,” Kim tells her, wagging her eyebrows suggestively.

They’re all mingling in a bit of down time before their shifts. “And apparently, he’s damn good. Got her walking funny.”

“Yeah. She went on a ‘break’ a few weeks ago and came waddling back inside,” Janice adds, cutting her eyes at Maggs.

If the floor could swallow her now, she wishes it would. “Janice” Maggs hisses, shaking her head, and letting her hair fall into her face so one can see her expression. She’s mortified, especially not having told them anything about what she and Michael have been up too. Nor did she think anyone had noticed what happened that day…

“Oh, don’t try to hide!” Janice says, laughing at her friend. “We can tell. You ARE walking funny. Not so uptight.”

“I’m not!”

“Oh yes, you are. It’s the ‘I’m getting dicked down and am feeling sexy, walk.” Janice proceeds to demonstrate, with an exaggerated sway of her hips that makes Diane laugh so hard, “oh my god, stop! I’m about to piss myself!” Her bladder is weak right now and the baby is resting a foot on it.

The look on poor Maggs’ face says it all.

“Oh, stop being a prude, will you?” Kim tells her. “So, does he have a big cock or what? Clearly, it’s good. Or you wouldn’t be skipping around like you’re two seconds from an orgasm at any moment. Now that we’re all here…I want DETAILS. I think we’ve waited long enough.”

“Absolutely not!” Because she’s not the type to kiss-and-tell. There’s a saying that you don’t tell your girlfriends about your boyfriend unless you want them to walk away with him. Well, that, and maybe…maybe she doesn’t want to tell because there’s a tiny voice in the back of her mind that she’s desperately trying to ignore. She likes Michael. Michael likes her. He’s a good guy. A nice guy. Better than her ex’s and he treats her like a queen, spoils her even and…

“Well, what’s wrong with him then? No teeth? Bad back? Fat guy?” Diane’s got the same kind of thick, clipped accent that Michael does and she uses it to full effect. “What’s his name?”

“His name is Michael. And his teeth are nice, he’s not fat and he’s in perfect health,” Maggs retorts, crossing her arms and shooting Diane a nasty glance that she ignores.

“Where’s he from?”

“Providence. I met him when I got lost looking for your house on the way to the baby shower.”

“Wait, what?” This time, all the amusement drains from Diane’s face, and she gets serious.

“ _Where’d_ you say you met him?”

“At a liquor store called Breen’s a few blocks away from your place. I needed directions…”

Maggs wonders where this is going. Each of Diane’s questions is more leading than the last.

“Michael, _what_?” Diane barks, her expression sharpening.

“Caffee…” Maggs says slowly, hesitantly seeing her friend’s reaction. She’s starting to feel a little less excited and a bit more cautious. “Do you…know Michael?”

“Do I _know_ him…?” Diane looks at Maggs and quickly corrects herself. “Oh, _no_! If you’re asking if _I_ ever slept with him, no way! Not that every girl in Providence hasn’t wanted to at some point or another. Hell, I doubt Michael Caffee has any problems getting laid. It’s just…do you… _like_ him?”

“Of course I like him!” Maggs says drily. “Why would I be dating him if I didn’t like him?”

“Oh, so you two are dating now,” Kim pipes up. “And, because he keeps buying you goodies,” Kim interjects. “Like the skybox seats, the fancy flowers, the expensive dates…”

“Beach house bang-a-thon,” Janice says slyly.

But Maggs ignores them both and looks to Diane. “What is it? What’s the deal with Michael?”

“Yeah, what’s the deal?” Janice is looking between Maggs and Diane, trying to figure out what’s going on. The tenor of their conversation has shifted, becoming serious and even the blind can tell Diane isn’t impressed with Maggs’ choice of a man.

“Maggs…Michael is a dangerous man,” Diane says.

“In what way?”

“Just…watch yourself. Don’t get me wrong, he is very, very sexy. But he’s also not what you think, either. You can look him up, if you don’t believe me.”

“I think you’re talking about a different Michael Caffee,” Maggs says. “That’s not my Michael. He’s not like that. He wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

“Magellan Anjulique Taylor,” Diane says firmly, laying a hand on her friend’s arm. “There is only ONE Michael Caffee that lives in Providence, Rhode Island, who owns a liquor store on The Hill. And I swear on the life of my unborn--I _know_ what I’m talking about.”

.

.

She doesn’t take Diane’s advice until she’s finished with her shift, and is home at her own computer, drumming her fingers on the table, weighing whether to do it. To see what comes up.

They’ve been together three months, 16 weeks, and when she thinks about all of it, the way they touch, the way he kisses her, holds her…everything… it’s hard to think of Michael being anything like Diane says. Surely…she’s talking about a different guy. Not the one Maggs has been talking to, right?

_Yeah, right. Providence ain’t that big._

Michael Caffee—Providence, RI

is entered in the search engine and as soon as she hits “enter” the screen begins to populate—news articles, most old, many archived, and as she reads the headlines, Maggs feels her heart sink.

“SUSPECTED MOBSTER ARRESTED…”

“NOTORIOUS PROVIDENCE GANGSTER GOES FREE…”

“Not enough evidence to convict…”

“Caffee Interviewed in Death of Alleged Child Molester…”

What brings her to the verge of tears is when she sees Michael’s mugshot come up. He looks darker, brooding, staring at the camera, hunched over with an expression of defiance bordering on anger, and it chills her, having never witnessed that expression before. He looks like a dangerous man in the picture, someone she wouldn’t want to meet either in the daytime or at night. For a moment she thinks it’s not him, can’t possibly be…but it is.

It’s Michael. Because those eyes are every bit as piercing as the ones she’s loved looking into when they’re curled together in bed, and….

Her heart hurts.

She shuts everything down and gets up, going to a cabinet and pulling out a bottle of wine. Cabernet Sauvignon. The cork is popped, a glass is poured and she drinks eagerly, trying to tamp down on the burn in her chest and ease the clenching of her stomach. Something to sooth away the dread swelling within.

What the hell has she gotten herself into? Or better question—who the hell has she allowed to get into her? Just a few days ago they were laughing and making love and he wanted to give her those pretty earrings and they even touched on a future…one together…with a house and….so much more than that…she’d dared to dream. Dared to hope that maybe…it was real this time.

All she can think of is dirty money. Murder money. Drug Money. Same as with Lamar.

She knew she never should have accepted those things.

Of course, Michael was too good to be true. Of course, she had to go in, too willing. What is it with men like that and women like her? He was too much of a gentleman. Too nice. Is he some sort of sociopath? Is that what the flowers were about? Did he track her to her job, her house after they first met? Is he watching her now?

It no longer feels enchanting, or romantic or any of the things she believed, and the dread gives rise to panic. She quickly moves about her tiny apartment, making sure the doors are locked, the windows sealed and there’s no way in or out.

_Jesus…_

_He murders people!_

_Allegedly_ says the tiny voice in the back of her head. But it’s quickly shouted down by her red-alert system that is going off at present _._

_I told you he was too good to be true! You idiot. You let him in…you let him…_

_Oh god…all the things she let him do to her…what they did together…._

_“We don’t want baby Caffee’s…”_

_But she did…._

So much for thinking she was special. Maybe Diane saved her from being next on Michael’s hit list.

The bottle of wine is gone but it wasn’t strong enough to ease the deepening sense of hurt. That he lied to her.

That he used her.

That he let her begin to think maybe, there was a future for them.

_Oh God…Oh God…_

All she can think to do is try and get Michael out of her, off of her. The water is hot, almost too hot, but Maggs is too distraught to care as she strips off her clothes and climbs into the shower, scrubbing and scrubbing, remembering the feel of his hands on her breasts, between her legs, her stomach, his kisses, his touch…the feel of him inside her….he’s here. Even now.

It’s no use.

He won’t leave. He’s refusing to go.

Now she’s crying, balled up in a corner of her shower as water rains down, washing her tears down the drain, but not fast enough to stop the new ones that keep coming.

The first time with Lamar, it was shame on him. This time, shame on her. Because the worst part of it all, is that she feels like she played herself.


	11. Chapter 11

** Chapter 9 **

He’s frowning.

It’s Saturday. _Where is she?_ He’s been trying to reach her since Wednesday. Michael knows her schedule. By now they have a routine. Maggs is off Wednesday, he’s there that night or Thursday at the latest. Stay through Friday night or Saturday morning, whichever he can spare. Give her time to get ready for her shift come Monday.

More than a dozen calls so far to Maggs, all unreturned or gone to voicemail. _Is she okay?_

The corner store is empty at the moment, save for Pete, who glances up at him each time he pulls out his phone to make a call. Or send a text. Or just glances to see if maybe she called already and he missed it. She hasn’t. He didn’t.

“What are you, a girl?” his friend finally remarks the next time Michael pulls out his phone and looks down, frowning.

“What?”

“You. If she ain’t called, she ain’t callin’.”

“Who says it’s a she?”

“Oh, you go both ways now, huh?”

It gets the closest object near Michael thrown at Pete’s head. He ducks it laughing, and the rubber ball hits the wall.

“ _Fuck_ you.”

“Eh. I’ll let your boyfriend handle that.”

“Fine. Yeah. It’s a she. No big deal,” he defends.

“Right. Whatever, man. Just sayin’. You’ve been doing that for days now.”

Has he? Shit, he hadn’t noticed.

“Well, what’s the problem Mr. Manners?” Michael snaps at Pete. “She’s had a good time. She’s happy. She says she’s satisfied. So, what did I miss?”

But Pete shrugs. “Don’t look at me. I’m shit with women. Hey, maybe she’s dead or somethin’. If she’s dead, doesn’t mean you got rejected or nothin’.”

“I _didn’t_ get rejected.”

“Right. Do you, man.”

Michael steps outside the store and makes another call. It rings twice, goes to voicemail.

_“You’ve reached Magellan Taylor. I’m sorry I can’t come to the phone right now…”_

“Hey, Magpie. It’s Michael,” he starts. “I thought we were…”

_Fuck._

He hangs up without completing the message.

.

.

Each time the phone rings and she sees his number, she hits “ignore.”

But this time, there’s a voicemail. And despite herself, and everything she knows, she makes the mistake of listening to it.

_“Hey, Magpie. It’s Michael. I…thought we were….”_

The pain and anguish in his voice mirror what she’s been feeling the past few days and it’s almost unbearable.

She’s protecting herself against a criminal, Maggs tells herself, a likely murderer, a sociopath. His name was tied to so much stuff. Diane was right. Michael is definitely wrapped up in things she has absolutely no interest in being anywhere near.

Maybe she should just turn the damn phone off. Change the number. Maybe Michael will stop calling, eventually.

 But as she reaches for it, the phone rings again. Maggs moves to hit “ignore,” but her finger accidentally slips to “answer.”

“Hello? Maggs?”

Oh damn. Michael’s voice, that deep, slightly growly tone, the clipped vowels, filter through. She freezes…afraid to answer.

“Maggs, are you…there? I just was calling to see if you were okay…” It’s laced with a sincere concern and worry.

“I’m fine.” Her voice is soft, even to her own ears.

“Oh.”

He is disappointed. There’s no masking it. And this time when he speaks again, it comes out harder, thicker. Tight with emotion.

“Then I won’t bother you.”

She pictures his face on the other end, brows furrowed, and lips tight, and those icy eyes. Michael sounds wounded.

 _Don’t believe it._ But her heart pushes her on. She wants to know. The truth.

It can’t all be a lie.

“Michael, wait. I need to know something,” she stops him before he can hang up.

“And I want to know why you’ve been ignoring me.” This time, his voice is deeper. Rougher. Angrier.

“And _I_ want to know what you do. What you _REALLY_ do. And I don’t want you to lie to me, Michael Caffee.” Now she’s snappish. He’s got no right to be the one hurt.

At the other end of the line, Michael damn near stops breathing. His heart starts beating faster.

What does she know?

He’d betted that the distance would insulate her, insulate them both, that she wouldn’t find out—but somehow she has, and…fuck.

Michael bites his knuckles to keep from cursing aloud, and runs a hand through his hair, stalling to figure out what to say to her to keep her on the phone a little longer, to talk to him a little more so he can at least give his side…

“Can we talk?” He asks, quickly changing his tone and trying to negotiate. “I can come to you.”

“No. You cannot. Not until you tell me that you’re _not_ a criminal. That you didn’t throw some woman off a roof in broad daylight—that you’ve not been questioned in connection to _multiple_ disappearances!”

Not one. Not two. But several. A pattern.

“Maggs, look. I’m no saint. But I’m not the person they make me out to be. Just…can we talk? Please? In person. We can meet in daylight, a place of your choosing, just...doing this over the phone…it’s not the best way. _Magpie_ , _please…”_

It feels like he’s fighting for his life. Pleading for it really, for something he was so close to having, a little patch of light in his own darkness. Michael looks over his shoulder and down the street. He’s the only person out here at the moment, no one around to hear him negotiating for a chance with a woman over the phone.

The smart part of her says _hell no_. But when she answers, it’s not because that part of herself hasn’t won out. It’s because the plaintiveness in his voice is appealing strongly to the part of her that wants desperately to give Michael the benefit of doubt, to believe him, and that part is overriding her common sense. Up until Diane said something, Maggs believed she was falling in love with Michael, thought he was good, and she was hoping maybe, just maybe he was the kind of guy he presented himself to be.

She’s so tired of being hurt and hurting.

He takes her silence as a yes.

“I can be there in an hour,” he tells her and hangs up because he doesn’t want it to be over before when it just got started.

Michael comes back into the store just long enough to grab his coat and keys.

“Hey, where you goin’?” Pete asks, staring at his friend’s back as he leaves the store just as quickly.

“Watch the place. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone,” Michael calls, climbing into his car and driving off fast.

Pete shakes his head. Michael hasn’t been this caught up over a girl since Kath. That was high school.

.

.

She’s pacing in her apartment, anxious about what the hell she just agreed to, inviting the devil to her home. Maybe she should not be here when she arrives, maybe this was a bad idea, maybe she should call the cops or something.

Hell, he’s probably got cops on his payroll. Her mind has been conjuring up all kinds of things about Michael Caffee and it’s only getting worse. Perhaps she should phone Diane. Make sure someone knows where she is so that if she doesn’t show up at work they’ll know the last place she was and who she was with…

A knock on her door makes Maggs jump and she smooths her hair and exhales, trying to get a grip on her frayed nerves before opening the door.

“Who is it?”

“Michael.”

 _Oh crap. He’s here._ God…a glance at the wall clock reads the time. 7:48. He’d made it in under an hour, which meant he was likely speeding.

The door opens slowly revealing Maggs’ lovely brown face, a face streaked with worry and disappointment. His heart sinks looking at her right now, aware she no longer trusts him. It’s a different Maggs than the one he saw a few days ago.

“Can I come in? Please?”

He tries a soft approach, a gentle one, knowing that the things he does and says in the next few moments will determine if she’ll ever want to try with him again.

The door opens a little more and he comes to standing before her as she turns and looks at him.

“Well?”

“I’ve never been convicted of a crime in the state of Rhode Island. Not since I was a kid.”

“So it is true.” A whisper. More to herself, than to him.

“Not all of it,” he tells her. “I’ve done a lot of bad things…I’m not proud of any of it, but…that doesn’t make me a bad person.”

“I bet you actually believe that, don’t you?” She looks at him incredulously, arms crossed defensively over her chest. “ _How_ does that make it better, Michael? _How_ does that make it right? What reason do you have for doing those things they claim you did? Those people who disappeared, the woman you threw off a roof! And don’t give me that B.S. about not being convicted. That just means they didn’t have enough hard evidence. I’m from Compton. I got cousins. I _know_ the game.”

It’s a slip. Something she didn’t mean to reveal about herself. But Michael catches it. He can see it in her face, and hear it in her voice, and he knows that her fear isn’t a fear of him…but a fear that goes a hell of a lot deeper. She’s afraid for him.

“Can we talk…not argue?” he asks, again, motioning to her couch.

Reluctantly sits, and he does too, beside her, taking Maggs’ hands in his. She tries to snatch them away, but he takes them back, rubbing them between his own as she speaks, looking her in the face.

“You know what it feels like to become a father when you’re 14?” he says quietly. “That’s how old I was when my old man split. Ma worked two shifts at the factory just to pay the mortgage. She was hardly ever home. So it fell to me to look after my little brother and sister. I did what I had to do for Tommy and Mary Kate. For my family. But you know, child labor laws—they won’t let you work a legal job when you’re just a kid. Plus, those don’t pay shit. So I went into other work. And I made a way for my family. And you know what? Their lives are better for it now. Tommy is in the General Assembly. He represents my district. Mary Kate has a job with the state—she loves kids and she does social work.  So I won’t apologize for whatever it is you _think_ I did. ‘Cause if I did that, I’d have to be sorry for caring for them more than I do myself.”

He’s firm. Resolute about it. Matter-of-fact.

Her anger at him has dissipated. Not that it was really there in the first place, but she’s left feeling hollow. Sorry for herself. Sorry for Michael. And sorry for them both.

 “Do you understand, Maggs?” He’s watching her face, watching her watch their hands entwined together, the way their skin contrasts, mingles. “Please understand.”

She nods and gets up, walking to the door. He follows.

“I understand. I really do. But…I can’t. Your life. Mine. They’re not compatible, Michael.” She’s looking everywhere but at him, even as he reaches out, and touches her chin, tilting her face up to his. Her eyes flutter down.

“Don’t dismiss us, Magpie. We could be good together. Can’t you tell I want you?” He’s standing close. The heat of his body makes her shiver, remembering the way he felt curled against her, how secure she felt in his arms, the way he smells…even the way he tastes. His touch, so light, makes her tingle and even now, she’s feeling fragile, hoping he doesn’t kiss her because it will make her shatter…hoping he does so she can just cry and get it over with.

What he does is almost worse.

He touches the side of her face gently, and kisses her on the forehead before giving her a sad smile, and leaving.

Michael was right.

They could have been good together. They were so close. She had been so close to giving in. To letting him in.

Except Maggs knows in the bottom of her heart, it never would have worked. She should have known better.

Michael Caffee was too perfect. This visit was a bad idea. All it does is re-start the first of many tears that begin to roll down her face, unnoticed.


	12. Chapter 12

** Chapter 10 **

Diane is waddling around the floor, moving slowly and Maggs comes to help right as the baby kicks her so hard it makes her double over.

“Oh!”

She clutches her belly.

“Diane! Are you okay?” Maggs comes to wrap an arm in hers helping her up.

“Yeah. I’m fine. Ugh. This little girl, I swear. She thinks she’s a kickboxer or something.”

Maggs laughs. “How much longer? Shouldn’t you be going on leave soon?”

Diane shakes her head. “No. I plan to work right up until I go into labor. I don’t have that much leave accumulated and I need every extra hour I can get.”

“That sucks, D. What will you do? Do you have enough time to take a long leave?”

“It’ll be at least six weeks,” her friend says. “Then we have to put the baby in daycare. Kevin isn’t working right now and it’s just me, so I want to be able to have whatever leave I take paid for, so we don’t lose any income.”

Diane has finally recovered enough to stand, and walks with Maggs down the hall.

“So, how are you…doing? She asks cautiously. None of them, neither she Janice or Kim, has broached the subject of Michael. It’s been a month since Maggs learned the truth.

The first weeks, Michael sent flowers. Maggs ignored them, and they died, right there, on the desk. She didn’t even open the note. But Diane did and tucked it away, just in case.

The second week more came, and Diane took the note while Maggs just left the bouquet sitting there, to die again.

The third week, and the same, except this time, Diane opened the note, frowned and felt a pang of guilt, and subtly tucked it away.

There’s not a flower delivery today. Kim and Janice were talking about it earlier. The usual delivery time is 9 a.m. it’s 11.

Diane know what no flowers mean. She watches as Maggs tries to be casual as she walks to the nurses station, looks around for a while and walks away. Disappointment. Nothing she says, but it’s written all over her face a crestfallen expression so sharp it once again stirs Diane’s guilt. She’s been feeling terribly these past weeks because Maggs, the sweetest person she knows, has been so deflated. It’s so obvious, like someone took her best friend. Like someone died.

No one has. Because Maggs’ light has gone out.

Sure, she’s still doing her job, but the smile is forced, not natural, like it used to be, and Diane knows what a broken heart looks like. She still thinks it was right to tell Maggs about Michael but is now wondering whether it was worth it. She thought she was protecting her friend. But in hindsight, perhaps not. Because from what she’s been able to glean from conversations with Kim and Janice—Maggs liked Michael.

Still, the question remains whether _Michael_ truly liked Maggs.

 Later, they’re in the call room, preparing to rest for a few hours, when Maggs opens her locker door. Diane sits up, seeing the photos. Maggs and Michael. She gets up to get a closer look. There’s one of Maggs and Michael kissing, another with the two of them smiling awkwardly in the camera. And, she admits—they do look good together. She’s never seen Michael wearing a smile—at least, not one that looked genuine, and with a pang, Diane feels what she did to break them up was a mistake.

“You two look good together,” she ventures, as Maggs closes the door and comes to lay down on the twin bed beside hers.

“I need to get rid of those,” Maggs says, rolling over. “I don’t know why I’m holding on to them.”

But Diane does.

“Listen hun, I know you really liked him. And if I didn’t know him, I wouldn’t fault you. But you made the right decision,” she says. “I’ve known Michael a long time. And I don’t doubt for a minute that he wasn’t everything to you that you wanted him to be. He can be charming. He can be sweet. But he also has a hell of a temper. He can be violent. When we were kids, he fought all the time, mostly defending his brother and sister. But I know for a fact, these days--”

“Diane, I don’t want to talk about it anymore. It’s over, okay?”

Diane sighs heavily.

“Okay, just…I’m here for you, if you need me.”

.

.

“You’re coming to the party and we’re not letting you say no. You need to get out. Stop moping,” Kim says two weeks later.  

“We’re driving, so no excuses,” Janice says. “We’ll pick you up at 8.”

Diane is throwing a pre-baby party in Providence, at a bar called Mulligans. All Maggs knows of Providence is what she saw when she got lost three months ago—a liquor store on the corner. She’s not really interested in knowing more. It’s only been six weeks since she broke up with Michael.

With a pang, she realizes that she never got to meet his family. The last thing he said they’d do before the breakup.

“I really don’t think I’m ready. Give Diane my best,” she says, trying to close the door, but Kim isn’t having it, and muscles her way in.

“Oh no, you don’t. Get a shower. Get dressed, we’re not leaving until you come,” she says firmly. Diane has given her orders, and Kim is following.  So is Janice. It’s worth a shot, especially cause Diane isn’t the only one who has noticed Maggs’ sadness.

Hell, Kim had been cheering for Michael and quiet as she’s kept it, she’s still cheering for him, shady background and criminal proclivities be damned. He treated Maggs like a queen and who doesn’t want that? Besides, from what Kim has found online, Michael’s been accused but never found guilty and everyone’s innocent until proven otherwise, right? Plus, he’s sexy. He’s got that ‘bad boy with a heart of gold’ thing going for him in her book, and she’s also a romantic, and really, the whole thing is incredibly romantic, in a dangerous-liaisons sort-of-way.  Plus, Kim doesn’t think what Michael did was completely wrong. She gets why he lied and while Maggs is hurt, Kim knows and she thinks Maggs does too, that if Michael had come out and told her what he really did from the get-go, she wouldn’t have given him the time of day. Hell, Kim knows she wouldn’t have either. So it makes sense that he wasn’t exactly honest.

She and Janice are waiting on the couch when Maggs comes out of her room dressed in insulated leggings, ankle boots and a tight sweater. All black.

Janice whistles. “You look hot.”

Kim shakes her head. “You look like you’re going to a funeral, not a party.”

Maggs has on dark lipstick, and eyeliner. But not much else.

“Whatever. Let’s go. But I want to be home at a respectable hour,” she warns.

The ride to Providence takes 64 minutes but it feels like the longest ride of her life. But for Diane, she’s going, even though she still isn’t feeling it.

.

.

A new baby on The Hill is always an occasion, especially because everyone in their neighborhood is related, either by blood or marriage. That, and they all simply grew up together and are family anyway.  

Diane’s party is a neighborhood affair, and Michael has made sure there’s enough liquor stocked to ply the whole lot of them.  Mulligans is packed, and tonight, he’s made sure there’s no smoking—out of respects for the pregnant lady.

“Hey Pete! Get the player going!” He yells across the room. The music comes on and floats through the empty bar. After an hour or so, the first few people come in. Then more.

Michael steps from around the bar to let the real bartenders take over, and retreats to the backroom as the party begins to really get going.

He agreed to let Diane hold her party here. Her husband is a cousin of Jimmy—his sister, Mary Kate’s husband. So, by extension, Diane is family too. It’s all on the house.

Pete’s with him, the two of them occasionally peeking out at the random squeal or breaking of glass—not too many, Michel hopes.

He looks out right as there’s a large cheer.

Diane comes swaying through the door to a round of applause, her husband Kevin beside her, a hand on her very large belly. It’s with a wrench of sadness that he watches the scene—thinking about what could have been. With Kath, hell…what he was kind of hoping for further down the line, with Maggs.

But Kath is out the picture. And so Maggs is gone.

She’s not returned his calls, and he’s given up on the flowers.

Shit.

He knows he shouldn’t have regrets. This is the life he chose, the one that’s made a way for his family, but it’s also not the first time it’s cost him something dear. The first time was the scar across his back during a seven-year exile to the ass-end of the world.

This time, it’s the one beginning to write itself across his heart.  

Damn she was gorgeous. So sweet. Like breathing fresh air.

The women here are clad in too tight jeans, high heels, pink lips and big hair—working class girls. The girls he grew up with. Hell, most he knows. Some, he fucked back in the day. They’re just working people clinging on to the vestiges of blue collar dreams.

Maggs was so different.

Different expectations for her life, different aspirations—she _felt_ high-class, made him work harder for her. And he was so willing to do that.

He catches himself missing her. That’s over and done with. It was good while it lasted. A sweet escape. Nothing more.

 A lie if there ever was one.

God does he miss his lady, though.

That’s what she is. A fuckin’ lady. Too much of one for the likes of him. Pete was right. She was all wrong. Not the wrong color, though. The wrong everything else. He should have stayed in his lane.

 And Maggs was right too. They were going way too fast. He had the foot on the accelerator, trying to push it as hard and fast and as long as he could, and they’d spun and crashed. The look on her face—he still hates to remember that. The idea that she possibly feared him. That’s what hurts the most. That Maggs was afraid of him. He never wanted that.

“Hey man, I’ma go out there,” Pete says, pointing to the bar room. Michael just nods, lost in his brooding. As far as Pete is concerned, he can brood alone.

There's a term for what's bothering Michael, Pete thinks. Pussy whipped. 

He just shakes his head as he leaves.


	13. Chapter 13

 

They hear Mulligans before they see it. And by the time they park and walk up to the bar, there are just as many people outside as in. It’s packed.

“Is the whole town here?” Maggs yells over the din of chatter and laughter.

“Looks like it,” Janice says looking around for the pregnant woman.

 They manage to spot Diane standing on top of a small stage by the bar and go to her.

“Hey my lovelies!” She yells stepping down and bringing her husband down with her.

“Kevin, this is Kim, Janice and Maggs—you remember Maggs from the shower, right?”

The trio greets Kevin and Diane takes special attention to Maggs.

“I’m glad you came out,” she tells her friend, sincerely.

“No problem. I suppose I needed to,” Maggs tells her with a smile. “I’m going to go get a drink.”

She leaves and wanders off to the bar. Diane looks after her, then at Kevin.

“Is Michael here?”

“He should be,” Kevin says. “I mean, it’s his bar.”

“Can you go find him? Tell him there’s something out here he might be interested in seeing.”

It’s Pete that spots her in the crowd.

She’s hard to miss, the darkest thing in the room and yet when he gets closer to her, he’s pretty sure it’s her. The woman from the hospital parking lot. The same one from the liquor store. Michael’s girl.

Definitely her.  He can just tell.

“Hey Michael,” he makes his way to the back room, weaving between the bodies in the crowd, and opening the door.

“What?”

Michael’s not paying attention. Just sitting at the desk, eyes pouring over the books, doing accounting work.

“Hey. You should come out there,” Pete points toward the bar.

“Nah. I’m good. Let Diane and Kevin have their fun. They don’t need to see me.”

“Yeah? Well, there’s something out there you may want to see,” Pete tries.

Still no luck though. When Michael’s stuck his head in something there’s no budging him. And Pete is trying to be diplomatic.

“Come on Mike…”

Michael slams his fist on the desk, and fixes Pete with a hard look—the one that Pete knows is Michael debating whether to shoot him.

“Look, man. Your girl is out there.”

His…what?

 _That_ gets a response. A quick one, as Michael gets up from the desk and takes a look.

 Sure enough, Pete was right. She’s there. He’d know that hair anywhere.

But how?

A sharp inhale as Maggs turns in his direction, raising a glass to her darkened lips.

God she looks good, he thinks. Two other women come up to her and she throws her head back, laughing, those cute dimples he adores showing.

“You gonna say something to her?” Pete asks. “You should, you know.”

Pete doesn’t know what happened, but he can venture a good guess. It’s hard for guys like them. When the women find out—if they didn’t know already—they run.

“Nah,” Michael says, as Maggs turns away again and starts moving off.

But even as he says no, he can’t stop himself from watching her. So close.

Fuck it.

He leaves the back room and starts threading through the partygoers. As he gets closer, he swears he can smell the perfume in her wake. Sweet, like a crisp morning or something close to it.

“Maggs?”

She stops, feeling a knot form in her stomach. The voice is unmistakable. She’d know it anywhere. Know his smell too—like soap and the cologne he wears. And she knows his touch, too. Her response is practically Pavlovian when he wraps an arm around her waist and splays out a hand against her belly.  She looks down where he’s touching her, noting the texture of his hand, and reaches toward it, taking it in hers and despite herself, removing it from her body and turning to face him.

“Michael.”

He is every bit as beautiful as he is when he’s making love to her in her dreams. And that’s really all it is and was.

A dream.

The lie behind those light blue eyes of his.

It nearly makes her cry. But she won’t. Not here, not now. And not in front of him.

“Hi Magpie, how ‘ya been?” Michael lowers his head to grace the side of her face in a gentle nuzzle. There it is. Lavender and something else. Vanilla. He loves that smell on her. She tucks her head under his chin.

The music in the bar changes, something slow, and gradually, singles start merging into couples. Michael glances around, spotting a few of the old timers—they always make him smile, a real genuine feeling—amazing really, they’ve lasted so long together, a man and a woman, decades behind them, between them. And yet still now, love remains. Maggs follows his eyes and smiles too.

“They’re cute.” She feels wistful.

“Yeah, they are. Dance with me?”

A dance feels innocent. Non-threatening. It gets a nod, and he slides an arm around her waist and pulls her close as they dance. More like sway together slowly.

Her arms wrap around his neck.

“Psst…look,” Janice, Kim and Diane are standing closer to the stage. It’s Diane who spots them, near to the front of the bar, standing a bit away from the door.

“Aww, how sweet.”

“It’s not sweet, it’s pitiful,” Janice tells Kim. “ _Look_ at them. They look equally miserable.”

All three take a more appraising look at Maggs and her ex? Boyfriend?

Maggs is laying her head on Michael’s chest. His face is in her hair. They’re close, but something about how they move, and hold each other, reeks of grief.

Diane sighs.

“I shouldn’t have told her. I should have let her find out on her own. Maybe Michael was trying to change.”

Diane’s husband, Kevin comes walking up.

“Hey, isn’t that your friend with Michael?” he asks.

“Yeah. I told you about that,” Diane leans over and whispers in his ear. Kevin’s eyes go a bit wide. “Oh, I didn’t realize that was _her_.”

“I want to go home,” Maggs says as they dance quietly.

“I want to go with you,” Michael tells her, rubbing her back.

She hears his heartbeat. Steady. Strong.

“I miss you.” It slips out of her mouth.

He aches for her. A physical ache. Maggs is deep, buried in his bones and it’s been hell without her. Try as he might, he can’t shake her. Their time together was too short.

 Never has he fallen this hard this fast, and now he knows why Maggs turned down the earrings. Because she’s scared. What she wants, he can’t give her. There’s no guarantee he’ll be there. No certainty they can stay together. No surety. There’s no future for them, and that grieves him.

 All Michael can do is try to get her to stay a little longer, to love on her a little more.

“Let’s go,” he says taking her hand in his, and guiding them to the door, but Moe comes up before they can leave, stepping in Michael’s way.

Moe. He fucking hates the smarmy little bastard. Has already inflicted one form of punishment on Moe, but the guy doesn’t get it. Moe is the worst of them, as far as Michael’s concerned. He kills for no reason, a bully in little man’s form. And right now, he can also tell by the red eyes and slightly crazed grin, Moe is drunk.

“Hey Michael,” he clasps a hand on Michael’s shoulder, giving Maggs a long look up and down her body. It makes her want to cover herself.

“Move.” Michael’s voice is steel. A quiet command.

“Is that any way to treat a friend?” Moe glances to Maggs and smirks.

“You’re not my friend, Moe.”

“Michael. Slummin’ with the hookers? You got a taste for choc-o-late?” He turns, leering, to Maggs. “How much for a blow job, hon?”

Before she can react, Michael does. He moves so fast she barely has time to get out of the way. Michael swings, his fist connecting to Moe’s jaw. Mags hears a crack of bone. Moe is on the floor, scrabbling to get away but Michael grabs him by the collar and drags him outside. People close by them pause. As Michael drags Moe out, they resume their activities, already knowing what’s about to happen. Maggs walks quickly out the door, heart pounding, just as Michael starts beating Moe bloody. “You worthless fuck!” he’s saying over and over, blow by blow. His fury is evident and for the first time, she sees clearly the kind of man he can be.

“Michael, stop!”  She rushes up to them putting a hand on Michael’s arm trying to stop him from killing that man. “Michael!”

His fist pauses mid-air and reluctantly, he lets Moe drop to the ground, before standing and exhaling.

“You okay?” He looks at Maggs, checking her over. She’s shaking, teeth chattering. And he can tell she’s not okay.

“Come on,” he tells her, gently placing the hands that were just violently beating a man around her shoulders and guiding her to his car, where he opens the passenger side door for her and she climbs in. He comes around the front and gets in the driver’s side and Michael’s driving out, right as Mary Kate, Michael’s sister and Jimmy, her husband, arrive. They walk inside the bar spot Diane and Kevin, standing by the stage and come up, offering hugs.

“Hey, did you see Michael’s girl?” Kevin asks Jimmy.

“What? A girl? Michael has a girlfriend?” Mary Kate looks at Jimmy. Jimmy looks at Kevin. Diane elbows her husband in the ribs and he glances at his wife, then his in-laws as they blink confusedly.

“What? Oh, you guys didn’t know?”

“No. Where is she?” Mary Kate glances around curiously.

“She’s the _black_ girl,” Kevin says, a bit awkwardly. “They were leaving right as you guys came in. I thought you would have passed each other. Michael was outside beating the shit out of Moe.”

“No. Michael’s never said anything about a girlfriend to us,” Jimmy says, glancing at his wife.

Mary Kate shakes her head. “Never met her. You know how Michael is. He only brings them around if it’s serious.”

Diane has to hold her tongue on that one.

.

.

The ride back to Boston is silent. Maggs stares out the window, knees together, hands between them to stop her shaking. Trying to process her thoughts. Michael stares ahead, hands on the wheel, one set of knuckles bruised a few tints of blood coming through.

There’s very little traffic right now. It’s late, the roads are mostly clear and they get into Boston and back to Maggs’ apartment in less than an hour. Michael pulls into a parking space and turns off the car. He notices Maggs’ leg is jumping, and reaches over, puts a hand on it to still her.

“Magpie.”

“I love it when you call me that. And I hate that I do.”

He sighs, not really know what to say to her right now. “Can I walk you up?”

A nod.

He does, and they stop at her door.

He works his mouth, but words don’t come out as Michael looks at Maggs. Finally, he settles on what to tell her.

“You’re lovely,” a brushes a curl out of her face, so he can see her—two big brown eyes shrouded by long heavy lashes look up at him. Only then does he realize Maggs is crying.

“Oh, don’t do that…”

“I can’t help it.” She sniffs and turns away, putting the key in the lock and opening the door. Michael follows her through.

“You should go.”

“You don’t mean that.”

She doesn’t. But she has to protect what’s left of her heart. Guard it against further damage. And the longer he’s here, the more fragile she becomes. She hates the way her body leans toward his, hates the way the air changes when he’s near. The way he makes her anxious and excited and scared and--

“I wanna be good to you.” Michael tells her, reaching for her elbow. She snatches her body away, but he comes closer anyway, and tries again. This time getting close to her and holding on tightly, as she tenses in his arms, but eventually relents, and buries her face in his chest, so he can’t see her tears. The fabric of the arms of his shirt, are in her grip.

“I wanna be good for you, Maggs. Please…let me love you.”

_Let him love me…_

_She hates she can’t say no, because she doesn’t want to._

The path toward the bed is littered with clothes. And as he makes love to her, slowly, passionately, deeply, he brings her so high she thinks she can touch the stars.

It feels like goodbye.

Michael wipes the tears from her face gently with the back of his hand. She’s in his arms, having slipped off into sleep. He kisses her face, her forehead, touches her hair, any and everything to remember her just like this.

In the morning, she wakes naked and alone and draws her legs up to her chest, wrapping her arms around herself. The place Michael was is empty, and cold. She doesn’t know what time he left. Only that he’s gone.

It’s only when she gets out of bed does she spot the box on the nightstand, and opens it.

The earrings. The ones he bought for her.  And there’s a note too. Short. Brief. But it makes her break all over again.

_I love you, Magpie. I’m sorry I couldn’t be a better man._

God knows she loves him too. But it’s not enough. They both know that.


	14. Chapter 14

** Chapter 12 **

Janice is the one who finds Maggs throwing up in a bathroom a few weeks after Diane’s party.

Kim is the one who catches Maggs when she faints during her shift.

They both try to tell her she needs to slow down, but Maggs won’t hear it.

They try subtly suggesting to her that _maybe_ what she’s got isn’t the flu. But denial is not just a river in Egypt **.**

When her period doesn’t come six weeks after Diane’s party, Maggs thinks it’s just stress. After all, stress and sickness can cause a woman’s cycle to fluctuate. It’s her excuse the first month.

When she skips again, she tells herself she hasn’t been eating as much, and maybe, that’s why she’s lost a bit of weight, and sudden weight changes aren’t good for the body.

It’s not until Diane comes back to work from maternity leave, and Kim and Janice tell her what they’ve observed, that she takes charge, and steers Magellan to a bathroom and forces her to do a pee test.

Only with Diane does Maggs finally come to acknowledge that she’s not sick. But she refuses her friend’s advice to tell Michael. They’ve not spoken since goodbye. Goodbye is permanent. She cannot live with the life he leads.

“I’m fine,” Maggs tells Diane. “I’ll do this on my own.”

Diane tries to argue back. “He deserves to know he’s going to be a father.” She knows how tight-knit the Caffee clan is.

Yet Maggs remains steadfast in her decision. Her baby first. For their protection.

**.**

**.**

There is no more them.

But Maggs has reminded Michael of what love feels like. And he desperately wants to feel it again.

She isn’t around when Michael eventually seeks out Kath for the second time.

If she saw what he did, he knows she wouldn’t approve of his ways. Maggs wouldn’t be pleased to see that he’s with a married woman, a woman with two kids and a family of her own. He knows it’s selfish of him. He knows he should leave well enough alone, let the past stay there, but he _needs_ someone. He knows Kath loves him unconditionally.

He knows she won’t hold him to a standard he can’t meet.

 _Kath_ knows who he is. He never lied to her. What they do—it doesn’t take work. It’s effortless. He can lose himself with Kath. He can live the dream with Kath—and over time her kids, become his. A stolen family.

Maggs isn’t there when Michael decides to take Kath on a roadtrip down memory lane, and they end up in memory’s bed.

Maggs isnt’ there when Michael decides to bring Kath around to the family, and Rose looks up at her with obvious disdain.

Maggs isn’t there when Michael ends up getting his head bashed in, and lies bleeding on the ground outside the Finnerty wedding, a sobbing, wailing Kath kneeling beside him, reeking of him from the sex they had less than an hour before, her poor husband Eddie helplessly watching their not-so-subtle exit from the hall from his occupied space at the bar.

Because Karma is a grand mal bitch, and maybe, just maybe, Michael had it coming.

**.**

.

Diane is at the wedding.

All of the Hill is at the Finnerty wedding. It doesn’t really matter whose wedding it is—everyone here is related by birth or marriage. Family, extended. Adopted. Weddings, births and funerals—the three things that bring them all together. The good ones, like State Representative and future House Speaker Tommy Caffee (D-Providence), and the bad seeds, like rumored gangster Freddie Cork, and alleged murderer Michael Caffee along with him.

Diane is smiling at her husband and receiving another glass of champagne, laughing amid the low din of conversation and ambient music when Kath Parry comes running inside, stopping everything in her wake, her silk dress covered in blood, screaming for help.

Diane’s instincts kick in, and she goes into nurse mode and follows. Kevin comes too. They’re the first to see Michael splayed out on the ground, unconscious and bleeding. Her heart leaps into her throat.

“Call an ambulance quickly!” she instructs, sinking to the ground beside him and doing her best to stabilize his head. It seems that’s where the damage is. There’s blood around him, coming out of him—his ears. His nose. Mouth.

“Michael, can you hear me?”

No response. He’s at least breathing. But barely. Kath is next to her on her knees, holding Michael’s hand.

“Baby, please wake up…” she’s whispering.

“Don’t jerk him. Be careful,” Diane warns, ripping off a piece of lining from her dress and using it to dab at him, trying to get a clearer view.

The wedding begins to pour out of the reception hall as sirens wail in the night, drawing closer.

“My baby!”

Oh no.

Rose comes rushing up, dropping to her knees beside Michael, and Diane has to tell her as well:

“ _Don’t_ touch him. You could hurt him further.”

Because it’s obvious that this is a bad one.

The ambulance pulls up, lights flashing and she has to step aside and pull both Rose and Kath away as the paramedics take over, fashioning Michael with a neck brace, and working to secure his prone body onto a gurney before loading him up.

“I’m going,” Rose says, forcefully breaking Diane’s grip on her shoulder.

“I’m going too,” says Tommy, her other son, Michael’s brother. He’s come from somewhere, Diane doesn’t know. She nods at them as they climb in the back of the ambulance. The doors shut. It speeds away.

Kath stands, looking desperately in the direction they’ve gone.

“Go home,” Diane tells her. “Go home with your husband.”

Poor Kath. Her hands are covered in Michael’s blood. It’s in her hair. Her dress. A streak on the side of her face. She’s distraught. Wild eyed, and teary. Her husband, Eddie comes up behind her, looking for all the world like a defeated man.

“Come on, Kath,” he tells her.

Good Eddie. Poor Eddie.

Diane can only wonder what he’s thinking right now, watching his wife cry over a man not her husband. But that’s for them to work out. She knows that Kath may go, for now, with Eddie. But she’s not going to stay with him. She knows Kath settled for Eddie because Michael wasn’t there. But that’s for them to work out. There are far more pressing issues.

Later, much later, she’s finishing washing Michael’s blood from her hands as Kevin is taking off his suit.

“Should you tell her?” he asks.

She knows the ‘she’ he’s referring to. Maggs.

“I don’t know if she’d want to know,” Diane tells her husband honestly. She’s watched over Maggs monitoring for any signs of depression—red flags that could herald something worse. No one has appointed her to the task, but a part of Diane feels very much responsible for the situation—for inadvertently bringing them together, for breaking them apart—and…well…for bringing them together again. And she loves Maggs like a sister from another mother.

“If it were you,” Kevin tells his wife, “I’d want to know.”

“That’s different.”

“Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. But Michael could die.”

He could. He very well could. But it’s out of her hands.

That night, Diane says her prayers. She prays to a God she hasn’t spoken to in a long time, and like all lapsed Catholics, calls on her training, the words etched into memory.

_“Our father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name…”_

As Diane prays, physicians work desperately to stabilize Michael’s condition at Butler Hospital as Tommy holds his mother in his arms, and they wait anxiously. Eventually Michael is air-lifted over to Massachusetts General.

In Boston.


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 13**

She’s watched in fascination as her body has changed. Grown, stretched, and adapted.

Some days are better than others. But she notices she tires quicker, that stairs are her enemy and now, at six months, the baby inside loves to rest and occasionally poke her bladder, causing frequent trips to the bathroom.

It makes so much sense why women go on bedrest, Maggs thinks, shuffling slowly to the nurses station. Her back is sore. All the weight now shifted to the front. It’s like carrying a bowling ball strapped to her waist. And there are still twelve more weeks left of this.

Still, as her hand caresses the side of her stomach, she feels her daughter inside press a hand against hers, and smiles.  There’s a bit of excitement that she’s going to be a mom. And Maggs is looking forward to meeting her daughter. It’s been bittersweet. Certainly not the way she intended—for example she’d hoped that parenting would be a team effort, but the decision to go through with it wasn’t so hard as she initially thought.

She’s 33. Not getting younger, and while she’d have preferred everything be planned; Maggs is practical. Time, unfortunately, isn’t on her side. It is what it will be. That’s what she tells herself, still working on getting to a place of acceptance.

But as she approaches the nurses station, and sees Diane, Janice and Kim all standing there, she knows immediately something is wrong.

“What?”

“We need to speak to you.”

They go off, into a corner, and it’s Diane who tells her.

“We have a new patient in the ICU.”

“Okay. That’s not unusual. We get new patients every day.”

Diane shakes her head, looking upset. “Maggs…it’s Michael.”

And just like that, the brave face she’s sewn on and has been wearing shatters once again.

.

.

A week goes by before she finally sees him. Diane has told her some things, but Maggs can tell, not everything. And she’s read the chart—blunt force trauma to the head, hematoma—Michael is in a medically-induced coma as the doctors wait for the swelling to go down. It’s all anyone can do. Wait.

His family is down in the cafeteria at the moment—all of the Caffees have been here—and it’s the first time she’s seen Michael’s family, though never met them. They didn’t get that chance. And she’s been too afraid to say anything or tell them who she is. What would she even say if she did? It’s ridiculous on its face. So she has remained quiet, doing her job the best she can, while the father of her baby lies in a coma in a room just down the hall.

Still, she knows who each of them are just the same. Michael described them all.

Tommy has blue eyes like Michael, but his dark hair is curly. Taller, but not as built. Stately, she thinks. He looks like a politician. The suit he wears daily is a giveaway. His wife, Eileen, tall and slender, straight and prim, but carrying an air of weariness about her Maggs didn’t expect. She looks tired, but not physically. Something else.

Michael’s sister Mary Kate, with her mass of auburn curls and slightly worried expression, and her balding husband, Jimmy. Jimmy and Diane’s husband Kevin are cousins, Maggs remembers. Mary Kate likes to sit by Michael’s side a lot—speaking to him and Maggs recognizes the technique—something a person accustomed to caregiving would do. She’s a social worker.

And then there’s Rose.

A female Michael, Maggs thinks. She’s overheard some of it. Rose’s sharp tongue, and bluntness aimed squarely at the doctors who rush in and out trying to escape the latest berating.  Dictatorial—she recalls Michael’s temper, the way he beat that man at the bar—the one who’d propositioned her. Michael’s sense of right and wrong. The matriarch is short, her hair a short, white crown and it’s clear Rose Caffee suffers no fools. She couldn’t, Maggs thinks, to raise a man like Michael.

And then, there’s a woman Maggs can’t quite place. Blond and petite, an angular yet delicate face. She comes around when the others aren’t there, looking nervous. Sometimes she goes in and holds Michael’s hand. But she never stays long, and she leaves before the others come back. Maggs wonders who she is.

There’s no one in the room right now, though.

The monitors are beeping steadily as Maggs enters. The oxygen is going, a sharp inhale as the machine breathes for Michael.

He’s so still in the bed and she approaches quietly, cautiously, afraid to look. Afraid to look away for fear it’ll be for the last time.

His head is bandaged, his face too—all she can see are his eyes, closed, the lids bruised.

Michael.

She wants to cry, but can’t.

So instead, she takes his hand, and puts it to her belly. Inside, the baby moves.

“Can you feel it?” She whispers to him. “That’s our daughter.”

Her eyes are hot.

“This is why I said no, Michael.” A sniffle.

Her worst fear manifest.

“I have to keep her safe.”

She lowers his hand and touches the side of his face through the bandages.

“And I want you to know…I love you too.”

 A kiss to the forehead. He can’t feel it. But maybe, somewhere in his dream world, she hopes he hears her.

The creak of the door startles her and she turns, to look up at a tall man, dark curly hair and blue eyes, wearing a dress shirt, the collar unbuttoned, and slacks. It’s Tommy.

He studies her as if trying to place her, and Maggs backs up a bit.

“I was just checking his vitals,” she says.

“How is he doing?”

“He’s…”

She glances down at Michael.

“It’s hard to say.”

An honest assessment, but a painful admission. The man sighs and looks down at the bed. Then at her, extending a hand. 

“Thanks. I’m Tommy. Tommy Caffee. He’s…my brother.”

“Representative Caffee?”

A tight smile. “That’s me.”

“Michael talked about you.” It’s a slip. And she realizes it as soon as the words leave her mouth. Tommy looks at her again, eyes narrow.

“Who are you? You’re not just a nurse.” He advances on her, backing Maggs into the wall. “Did one of Freddie’s boys send you to finish the job?”

Her eyes go wide, and she shakes her head, “NO! I don’t know any Freddie. I just…I’m sorry. I know Michael through a mutual friend. That’s all. I should leave. I’m so sorry…”

She ducks around Tommy and quickly exists, walking as fast as she can down the hall.

Tommy stares after her, wondering who the hell she is. And what the hell she was doing here.  He takes out his phone and calls Kevin. Kevin’s wife, Diane, works at the hospital.

.

.

“There was a woman here, earlier,” Tommy says, when he meets Diane down in the lobby, later. “A black woman. Pregnant. Says she knew Michael. Claimed she’s a nurse. Do you know her?”

Shit.

 Of course Tommy Caffee would add two plus two.

“Yes. She is a nurse. Her name is Magellan. And yes, she knows Michael. She’s not a threat, Tommy.”

Because despite the bad blood between the brothers, they all grew up together, and she knows that blood always stands together. He looks visibly relieved at her confirmation.

“Okay. Sorry to bother you, Diane. Thanks for the help, by the way. I haven’t really had the opportunity since…well…” Since it happened.

“No worries, Tommy. But, I would suggest…” Diane hesitates, debating whether Tommy is the person to tell it to. Michael may not have to know. But someone in the family should. It’s not right that Maggs should go it alone and a baby needs someone on its father’s side of the family, and…

“Tommy…I need to tell you something. But you have to swear never to tell anyone. Not even Michael. On your life, you HAVE to swear NEVER to tell him.”

Tommy has never seen Diane so insistent. It draws him in. Curious at the intensity of her words.

“What is it? Are you in trouble?”

Because his instinct is to help. To problem-solve.

“No,” Diane tells him. “But that woman you saw…”

Diane draws a quick breath. “Tommy, she’s carrying Michael’s baby.”

.

.

Maggs is at home, exhausted from the week’s shift and resting, when there’s a knock at her door. It’s curious. She’s not expecting anyone, but it may just be a solicitor.

“Just a minute.” She looks in the peep hole and takes a step back, hesitating over whether to answer.

It’s Michael’s brother. Tommy.

Yet, she does.

“Hello.”

“Hi. Diane gave me your address,” he says. “May I come in?”

She opens the door for him and he steps through the threshold, takes a look around, then at her.

“Diane says you and my brother…” Tommy swallows, still working to wrap his head around it. But the evidence is standing in front of him.

“Is that…my niece?” He asks, pointing to Maggs’ belly.

“Yes.”

“Diane also says you didn’t tell Michael.”

“No. I haven’t.”

“Good.”

Maggs looks at Tommy, surprised by the harshness of it and he has the decency to look a bit chastised as he explains.

“I’m sorry. He’s my brother. Just…you’re right. For not telling him,” Tommy tells her. “You’re right for leaving him. And if he does find out—don’t let him make you feel guilty for protecting your family. You did what you had to do. If you need anything, here’s my number.”

He hands her a card with a phone number listed on the back.

“I don’t need anything,” Maggs tells Tommy as he’s leaving. He stops and turns, staring at her with the same intense gaze that reminds her of Michael. They don’t look alike. But they sound alike. They move alike.

“You’re a Caffee,” he tells her, and points to her very obviously pregnant belly. “And you’re carrying one too. Caffees look out for each other.”

_Caffees look out for each other._

Michael had teased her once. About a baby Caffee.

In the end, he gave her one.

.

Two weeks later, Michael comes out of his coma struggling to remember faces. Names. Places. And worse, events.

Maggs isn’t there. She’s at the nearby private hospital, a transfer having gone through just days before.

Tommy and Diane are now the keepers of secrets.

.

.

Three months after Michael comes out of his coma, Maggs goes into labor at home. Alone.

At first, it’s all right. She’s a nurse. She knows how this goes. The labor is in phases. So she makes the first of the calls—to her mother, in Georgia. They’ve spoken a lot. Her mom was a single mom. Maggs never imagined herself as one, but she’s come to accept it.  

“What happened?” Her mother asked, when Maggs first told her of the pregnancy. “You never said you were seeing anyone, and now you’re pregnant? Magellan Anjulique Taylor…”

And with a guilty voice, she told her mom. More than she told to Diane. More than she told Janice or Kim. She confessed to her mother the how’s and whys of it. And ultimately, the why-not, when her mom asked about Michael.

“I wanted to believe in love again,” she’d said. “I wanted to trust. I wanted to hope, I wanted…”

Something that was normal. A fresh start. All she’d done was intentionally blind herself to the warning signs. They were there the whole time _._ She’d chosen to look away.

_Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me._

 

Her mother has eased some of her worries. Told her she could do it, that she was strong enough.

“You’ve got a good job. You’re a smart women. You’ll be fine,” she’d said.

Now her little apartment is a lot more crowded. There’s a bassinet ready by the bed. A sweet present from Tommy. It arrived in a box and Diane, Kim and Janice came over to help her assemble it.

The past year itself has been bittersweet. Thank God for friends. Thank goodness for Tommy too. True to his word, and ignoring hers, he has steadily checked in. And she’s sent him sonogram pictures as well. They’re very careful though. Her correspondence goes to his district office, not to his home.  Still,  Tommy, to his credit, isn’t his brother. And what Maggs wishes, more than anything, is that Michael were here. But she can’t risk her safety or that of her about-to-be-born daughter.

 “I’m on the way,” her mother tells her. “Keep your legs shut until I get there!”

Her mother is excited. 

The next call she makes is to Diane.

“Stay put,” her friend says. “Are you already packed?”

She packed a week ago. Has the car seat by the door to bring the baby home, an outfit for her, a sweet little thing, with delicate lace on it, in newborn size, designed with pink and red flowers all over.  She also has clothing for herself, larger underwear, pads that are inevitable.

“Yes,” Maggs says.

“How far along are you?”

The answer is a low groan. The contractions are becoming more intense. She breathes through it. But it’s all Diane needs.

“On the way. Be to you in an hour. But if you have to go sooner, go.”

Maggs nods, then realizing Diane can’t see. “Okay.”

They’ve prepped for that as well. In the event of no ride, and all friends are unreachable, ambulance it is. But it doesn’t come to that.

The next calls are to Kim and Janice.

“Be to you in 15 minutes,” Kim says. Janice tells her she’ll meet her at the hospital.

Everything is loaded into Kim’s car, and by the time they arrive, she’s moving into phase two of her labor.

A nurse meets them at the check-in and settles Maggs into a wheelchair, takes her vitals, and steers her into a room.  Now, it’s just waiting. 

The birth goes smoothly—as smoothly as it can. She holds out as long as she can in the thin hope she can tough it out without an epidural. But ultimately taps out and yields to the meds when the pain becomes too much but before the pushing has to start.

The nurse comes in with paperwork, and with a shaky hand, Maggs writes down her name. Michaela’s name.

The name of the father remains blank.

Tommy comes to visit her at home when she’s released. He peers down into the tiny, golden face that peeks out from the swaddle of blankets in her arms, and brushes back a wisp of black hair.

“Can I hold her?” he asks, quietly.

Maggs hands the baby to him, and Tommy expertly cradles the little girl in his arms and shakes his head. “I was kinda hoping Michael would be the one to give us a boy,” he jokes. “She’s in good company, though. She joins a long line of Caffee women.”

Seeing the question on Maggs’s face, he says hurriedly to reassure her, “all mine are girls. What’s her name?”

“Michaela Jane.”

Tommy cracks a slight smile. Really, more like an upturned corner of his lip. He’s like Michael in that way. “Michael James?”

Maggs nods. “Yes.”

He down at the baby in his arms, brings the blanket closer to her chin. “You really loved him, didn’t you?”

Even quieter now. “Yes,” she says, eyes on Michaela, sleeping peacefully. “I did.”

In her heart, the answer is present tense, not past. 

.

.

He gets pictures. They always come without a return address. Inside is an unsigned card. But he keeps them all to watch his niece grow, and he smiles at some. They remind him of his girls, when they were babies. One day, Tommy’s wife Eileen, discovers his photo collection and confronts him.

“Whose kid is this?! What the fuck, Tommy? You’ve got some whore pregnant with your baby?!” She’s angry, dark eyes flashing, holding the file in her hands, shaking it at him. He snatches it away.

“This is Michael business, okay?”

At the mention of his brother, Eileen stands down.  

The pictures keep coming. Every so often, Eileen takes a peek at the little girl. It was hard to tell at first, but as she gets bigger, features start showing up. The hair is different. Tawny and curlier than the long dark locks that grace their daughters’ heads. The skin too. But the eyes are unmistakable. Caffee eyes.

“Is she Jewish or something?” She asks Tommy one day, curiosity getting the better of her.

It gets a hard stare. Her husband is tight-lipped.


	16. Chapter 16

 

** Two years later **

He’s got no one, now.

His partners are gone.

The Associates too.

No girlfriend. No mistress. Hell, not even a fuck buddy.

His beloved mother wants nothing to do with him, and there’s a warrant on his back and a bounty on his head.

Michael’s fucked.

He knows he’s fucked.

Tommy told him to get out of town. Gave him a name and address out west and a 48-hour head start. They both knew what had to be done.  

 “The best I can do,” his brother said.

Tommy. He’s glad his little brother made something of himself. At least one of them did. It doesn’t make Michael’s present predicament seem so bad. His family has been worth the sacrifice. He can’t say he has regrets. No—a lie. He’s got a shit ton of them, but he’s accepted them. He gets his hands dirty so theirs can stay clean.

Story of his life, really. Something must always be sacrificed. No one has ever appreciated his, though.

Yeah right. Maybe it started out that way. But truth is, he got greedy along the way. Fucking Moe. Fucking Freddie. Fucking Declan—dirty cop who bashed his skull in last year. The real criminals go free while he goes back on the run.

His bruised knuckles grip the steering wheel tighter. His jaw twitches.

 The Lincoln was ditched a while back. Two cars later and what he’s in is far less luxurious, but also innocuous—1990-something Honda Accord. Faded paint. An everyday car. Nothing special. Nothing obvious. He’s learning what it feels like to become obscure, again.

Michael doesn’t realize he’s in San Diego until he spots the signs on the interstate. It’s a roll of the dice, but he’s really got nowhere else to go. A long time has passed since he saw her last. Will she look the same? Sound the same? Does she know what he’s done? Where he’s running from?

_Is her number still the same?_

His own has changed multiple times. Now he’s carrying a burner. Michael pops the battery back in and flips it open, hoping his failing memory will come up with a solution. Short-term is shot. Long-term still intact. He memorized hers a long time ago.

He dials…

_“We’re sorry, but the number you have dialed is no longer in service…”_

Shit. His stomach drops, the sense of panic re-emerging.

Not her, too.

What would she say if she saw him now?                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

What would he even begin to tell her about how his life went downhill the moment he left her apartment that next morning?

Magellan. Maggs… _Magpie…_

His little piece of heaven, if he still believed in it.

Like a breath of fresh air.

Now he’s suffocating. Figuratively speaking.

Michael steers down the winding roads, looking up at the buildings trying to match the address Tommy gave him with the numbers on the street.

There it is. He pulls in, gets out, and starts walking up the stairs…eyes darting from the paper to the numbers on the apartment doors.

3202.

A quick draw of breath.

_Think. Think._

_What she looked like. Smelled like._

_Vanilla._ _Does he smell vanilla?_

An inhale…pointless really. Just his head playing tricks on him.

He starts climbing the stairs again, stopping at 4202. The top floor.

Maybe this is the right place. He hopes it’s the right place. Needs for it to be the right place. He’s got nowhere else to go…

Michael knocks.

At first, there’s no answer, and he wonders again if this is the right door.

Did Tommy get it right? She probably moved. Or, she’s out.

Still…he tries again, a little louder this time.

And this time, in response to his knock, he thinks he hears something on the other side…a …squeal?

Must be the wrong apartment. She doesn’t have any kids. At least, she didn’t when they were together. And that causes his chest to clench and to rest his head against the door momentarily in defeat, recalling the way he felt when he came back the first time—to Kath—and saw her with kids not his. Missed opportunities. Lost time. A life squandered with nothing to show but dead ends and…

Michael turns away and starts to head back in the direction he came, when the door opens.

“Michael?”

He stops breathing. And his hands start to shake when he hears her voice too shook for the moment to turn around. He’s a mess. A fuckin’ mess. A hand trembles and he puts a fist in his mouth to stop it. To gather himself before answering.

“Yeah?”

Slowly, he turns around to see her, looking at him from the cracked door.

“Maggs?”

The door opens a little more as he comes back, slowly, trying to focus on whether she’s real…

“Um…hi.”

“Hi.”

The door opens wider as he draws closer and that’s when he sees she’s not alone.

There’s a little face peeking out at him from behind Maggs’ legs. A head full of curly ringlets, skin, lighter than Maggs’ but darker than his, but those eyes…he feels like he knows those eyes.

The small child blinks and ducks away under the protective touch of her mother, and Michael looks back at Maggs.

“You…had a baby?” It feels like he’s repeating history. Michael swallows, tries to stomach the disappointment. He does a shit job at it, because it burns going down. He tries to brave it though.

“Yes.”

“He’s a lucky man.”

Maggs smiles sadly, taking stock of Michael standing before her, shoulders hunched, looking cowed with red-rimmed eyes, his jeans dirty, t-shirt more brown than white, and a few days’ worth of stubble on his chin.

“Come in.” She opens the door to let him through and he does, standing awkwardly in the entryway as Maggs bends down to scoop her daughter into her arms.

The kid looks to be a toddler, probably around two years old, and she’s slight—dressed in purple tights and a pink tutu with a white shirt, and sparkly pink and purple shoes on her feet. As girly as they get, but in such a tiny package, it’s endearing and despite himself, Michael offers as best a smile to her as he can, an attempt to look as non-threatening as possible, despite the circumstances. She peeks up at him and shies away again into her mama’s chest this time, little fist gripping Magg’s shirt.

“Don’t be shy,” Maggs tells her little one softly, rubbing her back.  “He’s a friend.”

A friend.

“What’s her name?” Michael asks as Maggs comes over to him with the child, who is still hiding her face.

“Michaela.”

“Michaela.” He tries it out. Sees how it feels. “Hi Michaela.”

She peeks up to look at him cautiously, studying him a while before finally extending a hand to offer Michael the small, stuffed bunny rabbit toy she’s clinging to. He takes it, and smiles at her again. Humility is something he’s being forced to learn all over again.

“You’re pretty like your mother.”

“Mama?” Michaela looks at Maggs questioningly, her voice high and innocent.

“Do you know who that is, Moonpie?”

Michaela turns back to Michael, this time reaching out. Maggs moves closer to Michael so Michaela can  put her little hands on either side of his face, studying him intently.

“Da…da…dada?” She looks between Michael and Maggs, and back at Michael.

It’s then, when she calls him ‘dada’ that he realizes he knows those eyes.

Tommy’s eyes. His eyes. The eyes of his mother.

 _Caffee_ eyes.

Michael looks at Maggs.

“Dada? She thinks I’m her…”

“She doesn’t think, Michael. She knows you.”

He’s floored. It feels like everything stops moving. He thinks he’s even stopped breathing, like he’s on a roller coaster and left his heart and stomach at the top, before the drop.

“I’m … her father?”

Maggs nods and speaks quietly to her daughter before setting her down and taking her hand.

“Time for bed, Moonpie,” she says.

.

.

“Here,” she says, putting three towels into his hands. “You could use a shower.”

Maggs won’t get a protest from him. He follows her into her bedroom, noting the light gray walls, white linens and giant bed in the middle. There’s a table on one side, dresser on another wall, but other than that—it’s sparse. She didn’t like clutter, he remembers. Her small apartment in Boston had been tight, but neat. The rug on the floor—brightly colored—that, he recognizes from before.

She’s right.

He could use a shower. When was the last time he showered? Days ago, at least.

This feels like he’s caught between sleep and wake. Unsure whether any of it is real. Hoping it is, could be.

The water is hot. The tiles are cold. He stands there a long time, just feeling it, bracing against the shower stall, propping himself up, head down, watching as the dirt and grime and dried blood seep from him—fuck…has he been carrying all this around? The water pools at his feet, circling before going down the drain, running brown, then light yellow and finally, blessedly clear.

She’s got a baby. little girl.

A baby girl.

His baby girl.

How did this happen? Why? When?

This must be why Tommy sent him this way. Tommy knew.

 Tommy knew and didn’t tell him. Maggs didn’t tell him. They kept it secret. Kept his daughter hidden.

His eyes sting. Not from the soap.

Michael wishes regret would wash away just as quickly. But some things can’t be absolved by water. It’s up too high for him.

.

.

Maggs is sitting on the bed, hands in lap, waiting. Listening for the water to stop, trying to figure out how she’ll answer the questions she knows Michael will ask.

It was only ever a matter of time. She’d known the first time she looked into Michaela’s tiny face that she’d have to answer for her sooner or later. She’d never stopped hoping it would be sooner though -- that Michael would be better that he could…could what? Be different?

Still she was pragmatic enough to know she couldn’t afford to wait for Michael. And she also knew the potential danger she and Michaela were potentially in. So as soon as she could, she left. She ran, so to speak. Again.  But she did leave a trail. Maggs still wanted Michaela to know her father’s family. Tommy became a lifeline for that—she sent him pictures. Marking the milestones. And he’d promised to keep them, keep her confidence.

She didn’t expect the phone to ring three days ago, though. An emergency at the hospital caused her to be late picking Michaela up from daycare and she was stuck in traffic when the phone rang, a 401 area code that made her stomach clench and hands grip the steering wheel a bit harder.

“Hello?”

The car was new. A small Acura SUV that she was proud of and through the stereo, she heard Tommy’s voice. Low. Clipped.

“Michael’s on his way.”

“What?” She was shocked. Caught off guard.

“Does he know? How’d he…”

“It’s not about Michaela,” Tommy told her. “But if he stays here he’s either dead or in prison for life. You’re the only one who can help him now. We can’t. It’s too late.”

Too late.

For what?

Tommy had hung up before he said anymore, but the knot in her gut has persisted since then and that, coupled with a growing tide of anxiety, has kept her up three days now.

 Would he still be the same? Look the same? Act the same?

She doesn’t know what happened but has an idea—the internet is a useful tool. And reading that Michel was a main suspect in an attempted murder of a local mob boss along with being a person of interest in the death of a sitting state legislator was…is…beyond the pale.

Yet this time, unlike last, she’s not afraid. She never was afraid of Michael. But she was always afraid _for_ him. That something would happen and he’d never get to see Michaela, and she’d never get to tell him that she loved him and…

Unpacking from the move more than a year ago, she’d uncovered some of Michael’s clothes in a dresser drawer. doesn’t know why she kept that stuff. But now, she goes to the dresser, pulls out the clothes and takes them to the bathroom.

The water is still running, shower curtain drawn, and she sits them by the sink and tips back out.

San Diego has been good to them.

 They’ve built a new life here. Made friends. Kim, Janice and Diane have each been out to see her at least once.

There have even been a few dates. All tall, dark, handsome.

 _If you find you keep attracting the same type of man, it’s not them, it’s you._ Words her mom told her shortly after Michaela was born. But it wasn’t to shame her. Just a word of advice. Since then, she’s done her best to stay away from Michael-types, following her instincts, trusting herself, adhering to the silent, internal alarms that go off when the man isn’t quite right.

She’s a mom now. She can’t afford to make the same mistake three times.

The water abruptly stops, bringing her out of her thoughts and she realizes her hands are clasped so tight they’re clammy. She wipes them on her pants and exhales deeply to prepare herself.

.

.

He gets out, wraps a towel around his waist, and comes to stand in front of the mirror. It’s the first time Michael has had a good, long look at himself in days.

He looks like shit.

 Stubble growing in. Eyes slightly glassy, red-rimmed. He reaches up and touches his own face.

Worn out. Exhausted.

At least now though, he’s clean. But his hands are shaking.

It’s been several days since he last took his pills. Three days since he crashed and burned at a rest stop, and woke up from a seizure. A week since Kath and Colin and—

The bile rises up fast and he barely makes it to the toilet before he’s heaving up nothing but yellow into the toilet.

“Michael? Are you okay?”

Maggs.

Groaning and wiping his mouth with his hand, Michael staggers upright.

“Yeah. Gimme a minute.”

A minute to try and get it together. Back to the sink. Mouthwash to clean his out. Water to splash his face, skin now flushed and hot from the exertion.

He grits his teeth—fuck, he could really use the pills right now. But he’s got nothing.

And he’s got to face Maggs like this.

 Maggs.

Only then does he notice the clothes on the side and he snatches them up and dresses hurriedly, feeling a sudden burst of frustration—some of his old sweatpants, and a black t-shirt—before stepping out the bathroom.

It must be something in his face.

 She stands abruptly when he comes out the bathroom and they look at each other—he glares at her, suddenly furious—anger has always been his default when everything else failed. He’s strong in anger, and weak everywhere else and he can’t afford to be weak right now but—

The warmth of her hand on the side of his face immediately tempers his rage and her eyes, wide and deep, look up at him, brow furrowed in concern.

He takes her hand. Rests his forehead against hers, closes his eyes, exhaling slowly.

What he wants is to pull her close to him, bury his face in her neck, her hair, lean into the touch. What he needs in the moment is her arms around him, something to steady him, give him shelter, an anchor—in her body, her soul. He wants to be back here, safe, with her—building the family, get the house by the ocean…he wants all of it, and deserves none of it at the same time.

All he can do is ask.

“How?” It’s shaky. Uncertain. Sorrowful. All of his regrets. His failings. In the end. All he did was fail her.

 How. When. Why…

“When we said goodbye,” Maggs tells him. “I found out I was pregnant a few weeks later. I couldn’t tell you, Michael. I had to keep her safe. I had to keep myself safe.”

“Keep her safe? From me?” It’s crushing. The knowledge that he was a threat to her. To them. He never wanted it to be that way. All he ever wanted was to love her…

“Yes. From YOU. Michael…I _know_ what’s going on. I _know_ why you’re here. I can read.” Her soft brown eyes look at him, but he cannot meet her gaze. He thinks Maggs pities him. That he can’t stand. It’s painful for him, to be a thing of pity. He’s too proud, even now, to admit how much it hurts.

Michael stumbles back. Sinks to the bed, head in hands. So many, many questions. Little time. He came seeking salvation. Now he feels like he’s drowning in a flood.

A child.

It’s something now forfeited twice with Kath, yet somehow found with Maggs. But now it’s too late. He’s in too deep and he’ll never be the kind of father he’s only briefly allowed himself to dream of being.

“Maggs,” Michael says, still unable to bring himself to face her again, “I fucked up.”

She reaches out to touch his face, her own eyes bright with tears.

“Tell me.”

For the first time in a long time, Michael surrenders.

Maggs lets him cry into her arms.

She can be his shelter for a few days.

But that’s all she can give him.

.

.

 

Her daughter sleeps.

His daughter.

Their daughter.

Michael looks down at the small child, bundled under layers of covers in the twin-sized bed, decorated with pink and purple flowers, a mop of thick, dark curls sticking out. She stretches and yawns and he stops breathing for a moment, being as quiet as possible as she squirms a bit in her sleep but doesn’t wake up.

Seated cross-legged on the floor beside the bed and watching, he marvels at her. A piece of him. A part of him, here and present. Soft and pretty and angelic—something he helped make. This little girl is all of what was good in him, and he can’t help himself, he reaches out to brush the covers from her face, just to see a little more of her.

Features small, face round, the lips a delicate thin bow—those are his. The hair is definitely her mother’s and those long eyelashes—they remind him of Rose. Michael thinks about it all as he sits on the floor beside the bed just watching, fascinated and still very much in a place of awe.

“I’ll probably kill your boyfriends,” he whispers, with a sad smile. “If your mom lets you have any. Stay away from boys. They’re up to no good.”

She can’t hear him. Is too young to understand anyway. He wonders what else he should tell her now, while he still has the time and opportunity.

“Moonpie, huh? It’s cute. Sweet.” Like what he used to call Maggs, Magpie. Magpie and Moonpie.

Michael leans in close. “I’m sorry, Moonpie. I’m sorry I won’t be able to be here for you. Maybe one day ...”

His voice catches, fades off and he rests his head on the edge of the bed, the burning in his chest too intense for him to continue much more. The blankets bunch in his fist.

He wants to keep them both but knows the best thing for his little family is for him to go away. There’s no redemption for his sins. No way to pass it off, or escape it. The body count is too great. Witnesses are too many. His sloppiness, his drug-fueled rage, his arrogance and pride—now, he is paying the cost.

“Daddy loves you,” he tells her, brushing her hair.

Maggs watches quietly from the doorway, fresh out of a shower, wrapped in a robe. She’s not heard all of it. But some, and comes over to sit next to Michael. “She loves you, too.”

“You did good,” he tells her. “She’s perfect.”

Their fingers entwine and she leans on his shoulder as he takes her into his arms in a hug. A soft fluff of hair brushes against the stubble of his chin, tickling a bit, warming him and he grips her tighter, angling slightly for more—cheek to cheek, his face in her hair, inhaling the sweet smell of it, the texture of it, the color—all this, a re-commitment to memory that he prays will stay this time and become something more permanent.

 _Please God, don’t let me forget this._ He curses that among all the things stolen from him, his memory has let him drift so far away from the one person who gave him shelter, if only for an all-too-short time.

“I never should have lied.”

Her hands gently break from his and he shudders at the loss, looking down at where they’ve come apart. But when those slender fingers grace the side of his face tenderly, and trace the outline of his brows, his eyes, down the bridge of his nose and the bow and border of his lips. It’s gentle, intimate, and the tears in her eyes speak of regret and sorrow.

“Maybe I should have tried.” Her voice is muffled against the skin of his neck, lips tickling against the base of his shoulder before pulling back and standing, a hand outstretched for him.

He takes it and they look at their daughter, fast asleep in front of them.

“I love you, Moonpie,” Michael leans down and brushes away the curls from her forehead to kiss her gently before straightening and turning to Magellan to take her in, fully.

Under the intensity of his gaze, she suddenly becomes ~~a bit~~ more aware of the thinness of her robe. It’s always felt like Michael could see right through her—that he could read her like no other and even now, she quakes a bit, internally, feeling something shift between them. Electrified air, the silence of things felt yet unspoken.

“Are you hungry?” She switches the subject, trying to buy herself more time, refusing at the moment to acknowledge what feels almost inevitable. Even now, three years later, Michael Caffee still makes her heart beat faster and her body flush.  

A switch of the subject, something to buy more time.

Michael nods slowly, still watching as Maggs plays with her hair, wrapping one of the thick, curly twists between her fingers and he’s struck with a memory—their first date, seated across from each other in a back table—a bistro, somewhere in Boston…he’d told her she was beautiful.

_“I think you’re a good woman,” Michael said, leaning over the table to play with her hair. “You’re special. Rare.”_

_“There are a lot of us in the world, you know, Michael. Women. Good women. I’m not that special.” But she’s blushing, hoping he can’t see it, that her skin is dark enough to hide the color._

_“In my world,” he’d whispered in a way that made her lashes flutter down, then back up and her dark eyes cast away then back to meet his, “you are.”_

He walks slowly toward her, getting close enough to reach for her, pressing his face in her neck, nuzzling gently. “Let’s…go to bed,” he whispers, hand trailing down her arm, until his fingers lace together with hers.

She promised herself she wouldn’t.

Promised herself she would move on.

They slip out of Michaela’s room.

Michael’s arms wrap around her waist, pulling her flush against his body as his hips press against hers, mouth on her neck, backing her up to her bedroom, onto her bed.

A tug at the belt and the robe slides off.

Legs open like a flower.

And just like that she’s lost all over again under the weight of his body, the urgency and wetness of his kisses, the heat of his skin on hers and the sensation of raw desire and longing and pleasure that races up her spine and down her legs and pools inside her lower belly as he fills her in a way only he has ever done.

She’s shelter. She’s safety. She’s warmth and love and protection from the storm that’s engulfed him and he wonders if she knows that the moment he left her apartment three years ago was the moment the fall began and he’s not stopped. The further from her he got, the worse he became.

They love slowly, urgently, passionately and he goes deep, making them both muffle their cries in each other’s skin.

It’s a small bit of mercy to sooth their aching hearts. ~~~~

.

.

“I’ll find a way to take care of you,” he whispers, when it’s over, and she’s curled against him, legs intertwined with his, her head nestled in the crook of his arm.

A kiss to her forehead makes her stir.

“I’m going to take care of the both of you,” Michael says as Maggs rests quietly in his arms. “I promise.”

They part the next day and she has given him what she could. Michaela gives him a kiss on the cheek and he squeezes her tightly.

“Take care your mother,” Michael instructs. “Be a good girl and listen to her, okay?” The child nods solemnly and he smiles at her earnestness. “No boys.”

She makes a face and he laughs before looking at Maggs, becoming serious again.

“I gotta go,” he tells her, voice growing gruff with emotion.

She only nods, understanding that for them—this is it. “I love you, Michael,” she says. “We love you.”

“I know, Magpie.”

They’d watched him climb back into an old Honda accord and drive off. She didn’t know where. Doesn’t know where.

 The following week when she checks the mail—there’s an envelope stuffed with money. A thousand dollars all in cash.

The next month, there’s another envelope.

And another.

And another.

They come every single month.

And that’s how Maggs knows that Michael is still alive. That he’s out there, somewhere.

And that he’s keeping the promise, this time.


	17. Chapter 17

**Four months later**

Tommy waits outside the airport’s exit gate checking his watch and growing a bit more impatient. The Flight from San Diego into Boston has been delayed twice now, both times weather-related. It’s barely snowing, but to watch the list of cancelled and delayed flights grow on the overhead monitors, you’d think it was a blizzard.

Hers should have arrived two hours ago.

The Delta Flight terminal screen flickers, updating itself.

“Arrived.”

Finally.

This is something that’s been months in the making. Hell, close to three years if he elects to really consider it. But it wasn’t possible then. It is now.

His phone buzzes in his pocket and he picks it up. “Hello?”

“Hi Tommy. We’re here. About to get off the plane now.”

Magellan.

A deep breath, followed by an even longer exhale. It’s been a long time since something has actually made him nervous. But this meeting does. He’s only ever met Maggs a few times—the first, when Michael was in the hospital. Later, at her apartment. And months later when he held his newborn niece for the first time and fell in love with yet another Caffee girl.

 A low chuckle at that. The ratio of men to women in their families is tilted strongly in ~~the~~ favor of the ladies.

It was only after Michael left that he finally told Eileen the truth. She’d just delivered their fourth child, finally a boy, and when he held his baby in his arms and inhaled the sweet smell and touched soft skin, he knew he couldn’t keep the secret of his niece for very much longer. Michaela is an innocent. And for all the grief Michael has caused, Tommy still loves him. And he wants all the kids to know each other.

So, later, when they had a moment, he told her he needed to tell her something. And show her something. And he did, revealing the pictures of Michaela—the first photos of a sweet infant swaddled in pinks and grays and whites, little mittens on her hands, and later, to the wide smile and dimpled cheeks and big eyes of a toddler.

“Oh My God.” Eileen had covered had been shocked, to say the least.

After Eileen, came Mary Kate, who’d taken the pictures with tears in her eyes. “Look at her, Tommy,” she’d whispered, gently fingering the pictures. “She has Michael’s smile.”

Rose though…

That had taken more work.

“What are you trying to show me, Tommy?” His mother snapped, refusing to take the photos he’d brought with him. And, upon the first glance at the child, she’d shaken her thick, silver curls furiously, lips turned down.

“THAT is NOT Michael’s child. LOOK at her, she’s not even the right COLOR! That’s just some tramp trying to swindle us--”

“Ma…”

“Don’t MA me, Tommy! Michael doesn’t have any kids!” But on the words ‘Michael’ and ‘kids,’ Rose had turned away from him, abruptly giving him her back, and he’d watched her shoulders shake. The first time Michael had left, she’d never stopped hoping her son would be back. But the longer he was gone the less optimistic Tommy and Mary Kate became for his return. Eventually, they’d started believing he was dead and accepted that. But Rose never, ever gave up. And the second Michael walked through the doors that day and back into their lives his mother had welcomed her prodigal son with open arms, and a blind eye, because Michael, her first born, could do no wrong.

Until he did.

Quietly, Tommy places his hands on her shoulders and she turns and hugs him close as she cries.

“I just want him back, Tommy. I just want him back…”

He rubs her back as he holds his mother, her tears wetting his shirt.

“I don’t think he’s coming back this time, Ma,” he whispers to her. “But this little girl…can you just try to look at her?”

So she did.

And Rose knew, as she sat on the couch, red eyed and teary, that this child was indeed Michael’s. It’s in the shape of her face, the bow of the lips, the tiny smirk at the corners and the expression on her face…Rose had turned to the mantle, where a picture of Michael around the same age in black and white sat smirking down upon them with the kind of mirth only a child could muster.

She could only shake her head and sigh.

O _h Michael …. My lost boy._

“I want to meet her.”

The phone in his pocket rings again and he picks it up. “Hello?”

There’s background noise as the flow of people exiting the terminal suddenly increases. “Tommy? We’re coming through, where are you?”

He starts scanning the crowd searching for her and walks closer, waving a hand in the air to see if he can spot—ah, there. Another wave.

“I see you,” he says. “Over here.”

 She hangs up and as he watches, a woman with dark brown curls and a camel-colored tote slung over her shoulder makes her way through, carrying a bulky car seat and clutching the hand of a little girl bundled in a yellow peacoat with a fluffy white hood and matching mittens. The child is pulling a coordinating backpack with wheels that’s decorated in flowers behind her.

“Hey,” he says walking up to them. “I can take those.” The bag and car seat look heavy.

“Mommy, potty!” The little girl tugs at her mother and Maggs sighs and looks at Tommy apologetically. “Sorry, it was a long flight. Come on Moonpie, let’s find potty,” she says, picking up her daughter. “Can you take her bag?”

“Sure,” he says, grabbing it as well while they walk away.

For a second he watches them—Maggs is dressed in ankle boots and fitted jeans and a shorter peacoat similar to her daughter’s and he has to smile—because they’re adorable. When his older girls were little, Eileen liked to dress them alike as well. Must be a woman thing, he thinks. Eventually they come back and he guides them out the door.

“Oh!” Maggs shudders, caught off guard at the sudden burst of cold.

“HOW did I forget about this?” She says, shivering a bit and wishing she’d put on extra layers.

“It takes getting used to,” Tommy says, mildly amused.

“Wet!” Michaela points at the ground, covered in a light dusting of snow.

“And cold,” Tommy tells her, smiling. She’s precious, he thinks. “Must be a handful,” he tells Maggs as they climb in the car and start pulling out of the parking garage.

Maggs smiles. “She’s smart as all get out. Her pre-school teacher wants her to start learning different languages. Michaela, show Uncle Tommy how you count.”

“One…two…” Michaela holds up coordinating fingers and Tommy glances up at the rearview mirror and grins as she demonstrates.

“That’s impressive!” he says to the little one. “Your daddy would be proud.”

But at the word ‘Daddy’, Maggs tenses a bit, and goes still.

“Daddy MICHAEL!” Michaela says excitedly. “Daddy Michael!”

His eyebrows go up and he glances at Maggs, who is intently studying the outside as they drive down the interstate.

“Huh?”

“She knows who her daddy is,” Maggs says. But before Tommy can ask more, they’re pulling off the highway and making their way into Providence.

“I never thought I’d be back here again,” she says softly, as the old brownstones, and row houses come into view.

“Yeah. It’s not much to look at, but it’s home,” Tommy says as they turn down a street lined with a few trees, and a row of small but neat homes. He comes to a stop at a curb and gets out the door, coming around to her side and opening the door for her.

“Thanks.”

“No problem. Here, let me get her,” he says, popping open the back door and unfastening the car seat and lifting Michaela out. She takes her mother’s hand, made suddenly shy and wary by her new surroundings, and looks up at Maggs questioningly.

Maggs gives her a smile and a little squeeze of fingers.

“It’s okay, Moonpie. Come on,” she says, following Tommy up the stoop.

“Ready?” he asks, when they reach the door.

Her hands are slightly sweaty with anxiety and she brushes one against her jeans and shudders, the nervousness running through her. “As ready as we can be.”

Because this is it. Today is the day Magellan and Michaela meet the Caffees.

**\--End--**


End file.
